Calgary Corporate Traveller Workers Seek to Unionize

Nineteen Calgary workers employed by Corporate Traveller, Flight Centre Travel Group’s business travel division, are seeking to unionize through the United Steelworkers or USW.

Alberta Worker reports that the proposed bargaining unit would not include anyone above the rank of team leader.

The employer is the Canadian arm of the Australia-based Flight Centre Travel Group and specializes in leisure and corporate travel sales. The employee group seeking to organize is part of the Corporate Traveller division.

To submit a union certification application in Alberta, the workers (or the affiliated union) must demonstrate support among at least 40% of the workers who would be part of the proposed bargaining unit. In this case, that will be 8 workers.

The labour board has scheduled a hearing for this application this week. During the hearing, representatives from the employer can present arguments, if they have any, as to why these workers should not be able to unionize with the Steelworkers.

Listed in the application summary as representatives of Flight Centre are Lisa Baker, vice president of people experience in the Americas, who is based out of Vancouver; Chris Lynes, a managing director out of Toronto; and Laura Dunnigan, a lawyer who is a partner at the Calgary law firm Mathews Dinsdale and specializes on advising employers in multiple sectors, including transportation.

Should the ALRB approve the application, they will conduct a certification vote, giving the workers the chance to choose whether to unionize.

If a majority of workers vote in favour of unionization and the labour board awards a certificate, one of their first items of business will be to elect a bargaining committee and begin negotiating their first collective agreement.