In good faith: Organizing workers and bargaining first contracts under the Alberta Labour Relations Code

Alberta has consistently had the lowest unionization rate amongst all eleven of Canada's labour relations jurisdictions. This fact persists despite provincial labour legislation that ostensibly allows workers to join unions for the purpose of collective bargaining. This paper attempts to discover whether the cause for the low rate of unionization can be located in the theoretical premises of the Alberta Labour Relations Code.;Action research on this question was conducted through interviews with union and employer participants. Participants were asked to match their practical union organizing and bargaining experiences against the provisions of the Code to discover whether the Code's theoretical premises actively encourage or discourage collective bargaining as a means of managing divergent industrial interests. The study concludes with participant recommendations for amendments to make the Code consonant with a pluralist vision of industrial relations.