The Alberta Labour Relations Board has rejected XA Security’s attempt to limit a proposed Olds College bargaining unit to regularly assigned property guards, finding that the employer had not justified dividing security workers at the same site.
In General Teamsters, Local Union No. 362 v Backstage Support Services Ltd. operating as XA Security, 2026 ALRB 85, dated June 30, 2026, the board dismissed the employer’s objections and directed that sealed representation ballots be opened and counted. The ruling did not announce the vote result or grant certification.
One site, different security work
The Teamsters applied in January 2026 to represent employees at Olds College. A board officer clarified the proposed unit as all employees of XA Security at the college, distinguishing that operational group from the employer’s other trade names. The officer found the application timely and evidence of at least 40 per cent employee support, enough to proceed to a vote rather than proof of its outcome.
The employer argued that property security, mobile patrol and special-event personnel differed in scheduling, training, reporting relationships, working conditions and duties. It proposed a unit restricted to regular property-security employees whose primary and ongoing assignment was Olds College.
The evidence described regular campus guards doing patrols, building lock-ups, fire-alarm checks and incident response. There were also casual employees and a dedicated mobile-patrol vehicle. Event personnel signed up for particular jobs and performed different crowd-control and security functions, often at locations elsewhere in Alberta.
The employer’s witness could describe only one recent occasion when event-security personnel worked at the college. There was no evidence that such work at that location was an ongoing or planned occurrence. The union argued that those limited differences did not justify fragmenting a site-based security unit.
An appropriate unit, not necessarily the best one
The board assessed whether the workers shared a sufficient community of interest and whether the unit had a rational, defensible boundary. Relevant considerations included duties and working conditions, the employer’s structure, integration and geography, alongside the viability of bargaining and the risk of fragmentation.
For an initial certification application, access to collective bargaining is particularly important. The employer did not have to agree that the union’s proposed structure was the best possible arrangement; the board’s task was to decide whether it was an appropriate one.
The board found that the employer had not supported its proposed distinctions between regular campus guards, mobile patrollers and casual security staff through evidence or argument. It saw no justification for dividing a security unit according to whether workers used a patrol vehicle, or for excluding casual employees.
Although event-security work differed, all the affected employees performed security functions. The limited evidence about event work at the college did not establish a labour-relations reason to divide the unit. Shared work at the same site supported a viable bargaining group, and the employer had not demonstrated the predicted instability.
The ballot count was the next step
The board also rejected the argument that the all-employee description was too broad or uncertain. It found the proposed boundary sufficiently clear and consistent with its normal approach to bargaining-unit descriptions, including the inclusion of casual staff.
The employer’s objections were dismissed and the board ordered the ballots unsealed and counted. That is the outcome addressed by these reasons: the decision does not report the count, any resulting certification or a later collective agreement. Its broader lesson is that differences in duties or schedules require evidence of a meaningful labour-relations problem before they justify splitting an otherwise appropriate site-based unit.
