Dental assistants win separate bargaining unit at Assiniboine Dental Group

The Manitoba Labour Board has approved a dental-assistants-only bargaining unit at Assiniboine Dental Group, rejecting the employer’s argument that the clinic’s team-based operations required a broader unit covering other occupations.

In its May 14, 2026 decision involving the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, the board found that the assistants formed a coherent group capable of bargaining together without causing serious labour relations problems for the employer. It concluded that the statutory threshold for automatic certification had been met and said it would issue a certificate for the unit.

The ruling recognized the clinic’s common management, shared benefits and coordinated patient care. But the board found that occasional administrative overlap and teamwork did not make the assistants’ clinical work inseparable from the work of other classifications.

A clinic-wide unit was not the only option

MAHCP applied for certification in August 2025 for dental assistants employed by the clinic in Winnipeg. The proposed unit excluded dental hygienists, administrative assistants, dentists and employees excluded by The Labour Relations Act.

The employer sought a broader unit encompassing dental assistants, hygienists, administrative employees, patient care coordinators, laboratory technicians and sterilization technicians. It argued that their overlapping duties, common supervision and daily interactions made an assistants-only unit inappropriate.

That position drew on the clinic’s approach to patient care. Staff coordinated treatment, appointments, billing and insurance information, while laboratory and sterilization work supported clinical services. The employer also pointed to shared workplace policies, benefit and vacation arrangements, initial orientation, facilities and software.

The union accepted that the workplace was collaborative. Its position was that cooperation did not establish the degree of functional integration needed to defeat the proposed unit. Assistants performed distinct professional duties, generally worked with dentists and were not interchangeable with hygienists or other occupational groups.

The board’s task under section 39(1) was to decide whether the proposed unit was appropriate for collective bargaining, not whether a larger unit would be preferable. A broader group could also be appropriate without disqualifying the unit the union sought.

For an initial certification application, the board emphasized access to collective bargaining. The proposed group needed a sufficiently coherent community of interest to bargain viably, with a rational boundary that would not create serious labour relations problems.

Shared tasks did not erase occupational boundaries

The board found that the dental assistants shared skills, duties, working conditions and a professional scope of work. They trained together, covered for one another and performed clinical duties that other classifications could not take over.

The evidence also showed limits to the overlap on which the employer relied. Assistants and hygienists sometimes performed similar administrative tasks, but generally did so for their own patients. The two groups did not replace each other in their clinical roles.

Dental assistants could enter billing codes, book appointments and occasionally cover administrative work. Substitution for administrative employees was infrequent, however, and replacement of absent sterilization technicians was rare. Assistants assigned as floaters remained primarily engaged in dental-assistant duties.

The board distinguished an ordinary working relationship between occupations from functional integration so extensive that employees could not realistically be separated for bargaining. Coordination and workflow dependency were expected in a dental clinic; occasional shared duties did not establish that more demanding standard.

The assistants’ specialized responsibilities also provided clear boundaries. The board found no evidence that their collaboration with other employees was likely to create confusion over responsibilities leading to future jurisdictional disputes. Overlapping duties could be addressed through collective bargaining.

Northern visits required more teamwork

The employer placed particular weight on the clinic’s twice-yearly visits to Gillam. Those teams worked without a dedicated sterilization technician, requiring assistants and hygienists to undertake sterilization work and help with administrative tasks when needed.

The board acknowledged the greater collaboration involved. Even there, however, each classification primarily performed its own occupational work while helping with ancillary tasks. Given the visits’ infrequency, that arrangement did not establish functional integration sufficient to cause serious labour relations problems.

The board also rejected the employer’s broader prediction that a separate unit would create serious and unavoidable harm. It explained that labour relations harm concerned consequences that materially impaired bargaining, destabilized labour relations or created conflicting obligations that could not reasonably be managed. Ordinary operational burdens associated with unionization did not meet that standard.

A strike by the assistants could reduce services provided by dentists and increase the administrative work of cancelling or rescheduling appointments. The board did not dismiss those possible effects, but found that they did not amount to the labour relations harm required to reject the unit. The evidence indicated that the work of hygienists, laboratory technicians, patient care coordinators and sterilization technicians would be largely unaffected.

Similarly, possible service reductions or additional workload on the Gillam visits were insufficient to deny the assistants an opportunity to organize together. The board was not satisfied that serious harm was likely.

Professional-unit question left undecided

The decision did not resolve a separate question about whether the assistants’ professional status itself made their unit appropriate under section 39(3).

Professional ballots opened in November 2025 showed that a majority of the assistants did not want to be included in a unit with employees who were not dental assistants. That ballot concerned the unit’s composition, not whether a majority voted for union representation. The parties agreed to hold the separate professional-unit issue in abeyance while the board decided appropriateness under section 39(1).

Having found the proposed unit appropriate under that provision, the board concluded in paragraph 197 that the automatic-certification threshold had been met and that it would issue the certificate. The May 14 reasons did not record a subsequent issuance date or establish the terms of any collective agreement.

MAHCP’s bargaining-unit page subsequently reported that the assistants certified as a new unit in 2026 and described its labour relations team as working on a notice to bargain toward a first agreement. Its October 23 meeting recap also welcomed members from the clinic.