A proposed four-employee bargaining unit at a Saskatoon eye-care branch was too narrow to support effective collective bargaining, the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board has ruled.
In United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1400 v. FYI Eye Care Services and Products Inc., 2026 SKLRB 42, dated August 12, 2026, the board dismissed the union’s certification application without counting the representation vote. It ordered the ballots destroyed 60 days after the order’s issuance.
The board accepted that the branch had a distinct workforce with little intermingling with other locations. But those features did not overcome concerns about bargaining strength, the possibility of organizing a broader unit and a fragmented structure across the employer’s branches.
A single Saskatoon branch
UFCW Local 1400 applied in March 2026 to represent employees at the FYidoctors branch on Eighth Street East, excluding the practice coach and optometrist. The employer opposed the application as underinclusive.
An electronic vote was held but remained uncounted while the board considered the proposed unit. Both sides submitted affidavit evidence and written arguments, which the board found sufficient to decide the application without an oral hearing.
The proposed unit contained four employees. The employer had 66 other employees in Saskatoon, and the reasons described a much larger provincial workforce spread across additional branches.
Distinct does not necessarily mean appropriate
Under Saskatchewan’s employment legislation, the union had to establish that its proposed unit was appropriate for collective bargaining. The test was not whether it was the best possible unit, and the board emphasized that a small or single-branch unit can be appropriate in the right circumstances.
The branch’s geography provided a discrete boundary, and evidence of occasional movement between locations did not establish significant intermingling. These findings favoured the union.
Bargaining strength pointed the other way. Although UFCW was a large union able to support the workers, the board found that the employer’s much larger workforce outside the proposed unit could undermine job action. Employees doing similar work elsewhere in the same city presented a different problem from branches located in separate municipalities.
The board also found insufficient evidence explaining why the union could not organize a broader unit. It did not demand the broadest possible configuration, but required an explanation for proposing such a small segment of the workforce.
Fragmentation and common management
Certification of one branch also raised the prospect of separate representation at each of the employer’s 28 Saskatchewan branches. The board considered that structure vulnerable to conflict and industrial instability.
It distinguished an earlier credit-union decision permitting branch-based units. In that case, the union sought representation at seven of 12 branches, which were in different municipalities. The proposed structure here could create numerous separate units within the same employer and city.
Common employment policies, similar positions and regional management further weighed against the proposed unit. Different terms among nearby branches could restrict employee mobility and create inefficiency or conflict, although the organizational structure alone would not have been decisive.
The board also addressed freedom of association. It recognized access to union representation as an important purpose of the legislation, but concluded that requiring a bargaining structure capable of effective collective bargaining did not unduly restrict that right.
The application was dismissed because the unit was underinclusive, risked fragmentation and did not fit the employer’s organizational structure. The board expressly left room for single-branch certification on different facts; this was not a general prohibition on organizing a small workplace.
