Alberta’s Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act, 2020 makes broad changes to the Employment Standards Code and Labour Relations Code. It expands hours-of-work averaging, changes termination and layoff rules, permits broader exemptions, requires new union financial disclosures, and creates an employee election for union-funded political and social activities.
The bill also changes how unions organize and operate. It introduces mandatory representation votes for certification and revocation applications, restricts secondary picketing, creates new remedies for unlawful labour activity, and establishes construction-specific bargaining structures that can displace existing bargaining arrangements on a project.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends six Alberta statutes. Its core mechanisms include 52-week hours-of-work averaging arrangements, revised rules for final pay and temporary layoffs, opt-in treatment for certain union-funded political activities, new Labour Relations Board remedies, and special construction project agreements.
Who It Affects
Employers, employees, trade unions, bargaining agents, public-sector associations, teachers, police associations, post-secondary institutions, and construction contractors all face direct changes. Payroll teams, labour-relations counsel, union administrators, and employers working on major construction projects have particularly significant new obligations.
Why It Matters
The legislation moves several employment decisions from fixed statutory rules toward employer-selected schedules, ministerial or Board discretion, and project-specific bargaining. It also separates representation-related union funding from political and social advocacy, while giving the Labour Relations Board stronger authority to intervene in certification, picketing, strikes, and construction bargaining.
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What This Bill Actually Does
Part 1 changes the basic employment standards that govern scheduling and pay. Employers can require or permit non-unionized employees to work under an averaging arrangement lasting up to 52 weeks, rather than the former maximum of 12 weeks.
The arrangement must generally be in writing, identify scheduled daily and weekly hours, and provide employees with a copy. Employers must normally give two weeks’ written notice before requiring an employee to work under a new arrangement, although that notice is not required when the employer gave notice before employment began.
An arrangement may also specify how the employer can change the schedule and what notice applies to those changes.
The bill revises several payroll and termination rules. When employment ends, the employer may choose to pay outstanding earnings within 10 consecutive days after the end of the relevant pay period or within 31 consecutive days after the last day of employment.
Employers may recover payroll overpayments caused by calculation errors, and vacation pay advanced before entitlement, but must provide written notice; recovery of a payroll overpayment is barred more than six months after payment. General holiday pay uses an employer-selected four-week averaging window, and employees continue to accumulate years of employment during specified statutory leaves.The Employment Standards Code also changes working-time protections and workforce reductions.
Rest periods depend on shift length, with one 30-minute break for shifts exceeding five but under 10 hours and two such breaks for shifts of 10 hours or more; employees and employers can agree to split breaks into 15-minute periods. Temporary layoffs can continue for more than 90 days in a 120-day period before triggering termination pay, while COVID-19-related layoffs receive a separate rule based on more than 180 consecutive days.
Group termination notice is reduced to four weeks for employers terminating at least 50 employees at one location within four weeks, subject to regulatory exceptions.Part 2 changes the balance between unions, employers, and the Labour Relations Board. Trade unions must provide members with detailed annual financial statements.
Union dues and similar charges must identify the portion connected to political activities and other causes separately from collective bargaining, representation, and other permitted activities. Once the regulatory framework takes effect, employees must affirmatively elect to pay the political and social-advocacy portion; unions cannot discipline members who decline, and employers cannot deduct that portion without the required election.The bill also changes organizing and labour-dispute procedures.
Certification and revocation applications require a Board-supervised representation vote, with at least 40% support required before a vote on an application. The Board receives up to six months to decide, subject to an exceptional-circumstances extension.
Secondary picketing requires Board authorization, and obstructing a person who wants to cross a picket line becomes wrongful conduct. In the construction sector, the bill creates all-employee and trade-specific bargaining units, consolidation procedures, common-employer declarations, project agreements, and a revised major-project bargaining regime using compulsory arbitration rather than strikes or lockouts.
The Five Things You Need to Know
An averaging arrangement can cover up to 52 weeks and may allow an employer to amend scheduled hours according to terms written into the arrangement. A non-unionized employee generally must receive two weeks’ written notice before being required to work under one.
For a group termination involving 50 or more employees at one location within four weeks, the employer generally must give the Minister four weeks’ written notice. The former graduated eight-, 12-, and 16-week notice periods are replaced.
An employee must affirmatively elect to pay the portion of union dues connected to political activities and other causes once the applicable regulations prescribe an effective date. The bill protects employees from discipline for declining or revoking that election.
A certification or revocation application generally cannot proceed to a representation vote unless at least 40% of the relevant employees support the application. The Labour Relations Board must make its final decision within six months, subject to an exceptional-circumstances extension.
A construction project agreement can displace otherwise applicable registration certificates, collective agreements, and related applications for the duration of the project agreement. Strikes and lockouts concerning that project agreement are unlawful.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Employment standards, scheduling, pay and layoffs
The bill rewrites significant parts of the Employment Standards Code. It replaces the former hours-of-work averaging model with employer-required or employer-permitted averaging arrangements that can last up to 52 weeks, subject to written terms, notice, scheduling requirements, and collective-agreement rules. It also changes rest-period administration, permits specified payroll deductions for overpayments and vacation advances, and gives employers two alternative deadlines for paying final earnings.
The layoff and termination provisions materially change employer planning. A temporary layoff generally becomes a termination after more than 90 days within a 120-day period, while COVID-19-related layoffs follow a separate 180-consecutive-day rule. The group-termination regime uses a four-week notice period for qualifying terminations and requires notice to the Minister rather than the former graduated schedule.
Variances, complaints and transitional powers
The Director may issue variances or exemptions on applications from an employer association or group of employers, not only an individual employer. The Minister receives parallel authority to issue orders for employer groups and associations. Recipients must provide affected employees with the relevant variance, exemption, amendment, or revocation.
The bill creates broad transitional regulation-making authority. Regulations may address confusion or difficulty arising from the transition, may delegate functions to the Director, and may operate retroactively within the limits stated in the legislation. Separate transitional rules preserve former provisions for specified pending complaints, applications, and proceedings.
Union governance and dues elections
The Labour Relations Code requires trade unions to give members annual financial statements detailed enough to disclose the union’s financial condition and operations. Members may complain to the Labour Relations Board about missing or inadequate statements, and the Board may order corrected disclosure.
The bill divides union dues between representation-related activities and political activities or other causes. After the prescribed effective date, a person does not have to pay the latter category unless the person makes an election. The union must disclose the categories, provide information needed for an informed decision, preserve the member’s status despite non-election, and keep funds collected for representation-related purposes within that category. The Board can order disclosure, reclassification, cessation of collection, restitution, or suspension of dues collection.
Certification, revocation and Board remedies
Certification and revocation procedures move away from the former accelerated timetable. The Board must verify at least 40% support before conducting the applicable representation vote and must generally complete the process within six months. The bill also gives the Board stronger remedial authority where a prohibited practice has distorted a certification vote, including ordering another vote or, in limited circumstances, certifying or refusing to certify without another vote.
The amendments restrict some certification and revocation applications after employees approve a new collective agreement, and they create a six-month waiting period for substantially similar certification applications that fail because of an applicant’s non-compliance. The Board may also vary or amend collective agreements in specified construction certification situations and may reject a fair-representation complaint summarily when the complainant has refused a fair and reasonable settlement.
Picketing, strikes, arbitration and unlawful labour activity
Secondary picketing at premises other than the primary employer’s workplace requires an order from the Labour Relations Board. The Board can authorize the picketing, set its location, and impose other declarations. Blocking someone who wishes to cross a picket line is expressly wrongful, and Board directives or orders concerning strikes, lockouts, or picketing can be filed with the Court and enforced as judgments.
The bill narrows the circumstances in which the Board can send an unresolved bargaining dispute to arbitration, requiring a statutory failure such as refusing to bargain or failing to make reasonable efforts to reach an agreement, plus a finding that no lesser remedy would suffice. If a prohibited strike occurs, the Board can direct suspension of dues deductions for one to six months. If a prohibited lockout occurs, the Board can require the employer to pay the affected employees’ union dues for one to six months.
Construction bargaining structures and project agreements
The bill creates construction-specific all-employee and trade-specific bargaining units, allows consolidation of existing trade-specific bargaining rights, and permits common-employer declarations where related businesses operate under common control or structure to avoid a bargaining relationship. It also establishes project agreements negotiated through the Building Trades of Alberta and participating registered trade unions.
A project agreement binds participating unions, employees, and employers for the project and excludes them from otherwise applicable registration certificates, collective agreements, and certain related applications. The agreement cannot be revised or renewed by an individual participating union; those negotiations are reserved to the Building Trades of Alberta and the relevant employers. Strikes and lockouts over a project agreement are unlawful.
Major-project bargaining and compulsory arbitration
The revised major-construction-project regime allows the Minister to designate a project when it is significant to Alberta’s economy and it is in the public interest to authorize project bargaining. A designated principal contractor may serve notice on project trade unions, after which the parties must bargain in good faith but cannot strike or lock out over the negotiations.
If bargaining fails, either party can require compulsory arbitration. A three-member arbitration board is the default, although the parties can agree to a single arbitrator. The board must issue an award dealing with each disputed matter within 20 working days after being established, unless a longer period is agreed or fixed by the Minister. The resulting agreement binds the specified project participants and can override conflicting provisions of the Labour Relations Code.
Police, education and public-sector associations
The same dues-disclosure and election framework extends beyond the general Labour Relations Code. Police associations and unions covered by the Public Service Employee Relations Act must provide annual financial statements and separate representation-related dues from political and social-advocacy funding. Police association members receive comparable election and anti-discipline protections.
The Post-secondary Learning Act requires academic staff, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate-student associations to address bargaining-agent dues in their bylaws. The Public Education Collective Bargaining Act creates a tailored election regime for Alberta teachers that separately identifies political activities, professional development and governance, and bargaining or representation. The bill also addresses binding arbitration clauses affecting academic staff bargaining by voiding specified provisions and awards connected to the next collective agreement negotiations.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Employees working irregular schedules may benefit from clearer written averaging terms and from the ability to challenge unpaid overtime after an averaging period ends. The framework also gives employees a defined notice period before a new employer-imposed averaging arrangement generally begins.
- Union members receive mandatory annual financial disclosure and a statutory mechanism to challenge inadequate statements or improper classification of dues. Members can decline the political and social-advocacy portion of dues without losing membership or facing discipline.
- Employers with seasonal, cyclical, or project-based operations gain more scheduling flexibility through 52-week averaging, revised rest-period scheduling, broader variance applications, and longer temporary-layoff periods.
- Construction owners and principal contractors can negotiate project-wide labour terms and use consolidated or project-specific bargaining structures instead of managing multiple overlapping bargaining arrangements.
- People affected by unlawful strikes or lockouts receive targeted financial consequences and enforcement mechanisms, including possible dues suspension during an unlawful strike and employer-paid dues during an unlawful lockout.
Who Bears the Cost
- Employers must redesign payroll, scheduling, final-pay, layoff, group-termination, and recordkeeping processes. They may also face restitution or enforcement proceedings if deductions, overtime calculations, or notice obligations are mishandled.
- Trade unions must produce more detailed financial statements, classify spending, obtain elections for specified dues, protect non-participating members, and respond to Board disclosure or restitution orders.
- Employees and unions seeking certification or revocation face a formal representation vote and a process that can last up to six months, reducing the speed of organizing or decertification campaigns.
- The Labour Relations Board and its staff receive additional investigative and adjudicative responsibilities involving votes, dues disputes, secondary picketing, construction bargaining, unlawful labour activity, and project agreements.
- Construction unions and employers may lose the protection or control associated with existing registration certificates and collective agreements when a project agreement or consolidated bargaining structure applies.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill consistently chooses operational flexibility and centralized labour administration over individual bargaining autonomy and fixed statutory protections. Employers gain broader control over scheduling, layoffs, exemptions, and project bargaining, while employees and unions receive new disclosure rights and targeted remedies but face slower organizing procedures, limits on picketing and strikes, and the possibility that existing bargaining relationships will be displaced by broader structures.
The bill’s scheduling reforms trade predictability for flexibility. A 52-week averaging period can align hours with seasonal demand, but it also makes overtime entitlement depend on the structure of the arrangement and the point at which employment ends.
The employer’s ability to specify schedule changes within the arrangement raises practical questions about how much notice employees will receive and how disputes will be resolved under regulations that are not set out in the bill itself.
The dues-election model is administratively detailed but leaves important classification questions to regulation and Board decisions. Political activities, social causes, charities, affiliated organizations, bargaining, representation, professional development, and governance must be separated in several different statutory settings.
Unions will need accounting systems capable of supporting those distinctions, while employers must implement payroll instructions tied to individual elections and revocations. The bill also allows serious remedies, including restitution and suspension of dues collection, when the system is violated.
The construction provisions create efficiency for large projects by permitting common bargaining structures and compulsory arbitration, but they can displace existing labour arrangements and limit the ability to strike or lock out. The project-agreement regime is especially unusual because a designated bargaining structure can bind employers and employees who did not individually negotiate its terms, while the agreement’s relationship with other certificates, collective agreements, and Board proceedings depends on detailed statutory exclusions and project boundaries.
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