Forming a union: how it works

The process

In Ontario, the process of forming a union is a straightforward, two-step process. Read on to learn more about this process, or jump to what’s next for IPC employees. 

Step one: Card signing

The law requires that at least 40% of eligible employees in a workplace sign union membership cards to signify their support for the union to represent them. However, AMAPCEO never requests to move to a vote until there is a significant majority who have signed cards. Our employer does not know who has signed a card.

On Thursday, June 22, AMAPCEO filed for certification with over 70% support. 

Step two: Secret ballot vote

Once these cards are signed, they are confidentially submitted to the independent Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) as evidence that there is sufficient support for unionization and as an official application to form a union. This triggers the OLRB to conduct a secret-ballot certification vote for that workplace—a vote that requires the approval of a majority of those voting. The ballots are counted securely by the OLRB and the employer never has access to them.

The secret ballot vote has been scheduled by the OLRB for Thursday, June 29 at 2 pm ET to Friday June 30 at 2 pm ET—voting instructions are now available on the updates page of our website. 

The only way our employer would learn about how an IPC employee voted is if the employee chose to make that information public.

Once an application for union certification is filed with the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), our existing terms and conditions of employment are “frozen” until our first collective agreement is negotiated.

This means that our employer cannot change the terms of our employment—like job classification, salary, or work-from-home agreements—without seeking and obtaining the union’s consent. If our employer wants to increase our compensation or address job classification, for example, before a first collective agreement is concluded, IPC leadership and our union, AMAPCEO, could come to an agreement.

This “freeze” on our terms and conditions has already occurred with the filing of the application on June 22—see the updates page for details. This legal protection means that our employer cannot retaliate against us for unionizing.

If the secret ballot vote is successful (Step two), we are officially unionized! It is important to note, though, that we do not pay membership dues until we, the IPC employees, have collectively negotiated our first collective agreement. There are no retroactive dues for this time period and no initiation fees.

Where we are now

On Friday, June 30, IPC employees cast their secret-ballot vote regarding forming a union with AMAPCEO. 

Due to a challenge from the IPC employer regarding who would be eligible to be in our union, the “ballot box” of votes has been “sealed” and the votes cannot be counted until this issue is resolved. However, we remain confident of a positive outcome. You can learn more about the sealed ballot box and what's next on the updates page of our website. 

What can I do?

Your IPC Union Committee and AMAPCEO are working hard to ensure this is resolved quickly, so we can see the results of our vote to form our union. We encourage you all to stay positive and continue to stand together! This challenge does not change or invalidate our votes and does not affect the ultimate outcome, it is simply a brief delay.