A small hospitality employer in BC was struggling with weekend coverage. Nothing unusual — scheduling headaches are part of the business. So they did what they'd always done: updated the scheduling policy and told staff.
It was an operational fix. Reasonable. Well-intentioned. The kind of call managers make every week.
Two days later, an unfair labour practice complaint had been filed against them at the BC Labour Relations Board.
They hadn't meant to break the rules. In fact, they didn't even know the rules had changed. But the moment their workplace was certified, the legal framework governing how they ran that workplace changed — and no one had told them.
This is one of the most common, and most preventable, mistakes newly certified employers make.
What Certification Actually Means for Day-to-Day Operations
Most employers think of certification as the starting gun for bargaining. And it is. But it's also something else: it's the moment a set of legal obligations kicks in that governs how you run your workplace from that point forward.
The BC Labour Relations Code imposes a statutory freeze on working conditions as soon as a union is certified. The freeze means that employers cannot unilaterally change wages, benefits, or working conditions while bargaining is underway — even if the change is minor, well-intentioned, or completely unrelated to what's being discussed at the table.
The freeze exists to protect the integrity of the bargaining process. If an employer could freely alter working conditions during negotiations, they could undermine the union's position — intentionally or not — before a first agreement is ever reached.
When Does the Freeze Start — and When Does It End?
There are actually two distinct freezes that can apply, and they operate at different stages of the unionization process.
The first arises when a union applies for certification. From that point, the employer is expected to maintain the status quo while the Labour Relations Board works through the application. The second freeze follows once the parties begin the bargaining process, and it continues until bargaining reaches its conclusion — one way or another.
Together, these two freezes can cover a significant stretch of time. During that entire period, the employer's ability to make unilateral changes to the workplace is significantly restricted — more on that below.
The underlying purpose is straightforward: to ensure that the unionization and bargaining processes play out on a level field, without the employer reshaping the workplace in ways that could influence the outcome.
This is the period when even well-intentioned operational decisions can create legal exposure. When in doubt, seek advice before acting.
What You Can't Do During the Freeze
The freeze covers wages, benefits, and working conditions — and "working conditions" is interpreted broadly. Some of the most common areas where employers run into trouble:
- Scheduling and hours of work. Changing shift structures, adjusting hours, modifying how overtime is assigned — these are all working conditions. The hospitality employer in our example changed a scheduling policy without the union's agreement. That was enough to trigger a complaint.
- Compensation. Wage increases — even ones that were planned before certification, even ones that benefit employees — can violate the freeze if implemented without the union's consent.
- Benefits. Modifying benefit plans, changing coverage, adjusting premiums — all of this falls within the freeze.
- Policies that affect how work is performed. A new attendance policy. A revised performance management process. Changes to dress code, tip distribution, break schedules. If it affects working conditions, it's caught by the freeze.
What You Can Still Do
The freeze doesn't mean your workplace goes into suspended animation. The key distinction is between decisions that change working conditions and decisions that operate within existing ones.
You can still:
- Apply and enforce existing policies as they stand
- Make decisions already in motion before certification, provided they were genuinely decided before, not accelerated afterward
- Discipline or terminate employees for legitimate cause, following the same process you would have before certification
- Discuss proposed changes with the union and implement them with their agreement
The freeze doesn't prohibit change — it requires that changes happen with the union's consent.
Why Intent Doesn't Matter
The most important thing to understand about the statutory freeze is that it's not about bad faith. The hospitality employer wasn't trying to undermine the union. They were just trying to solve a scheduling problem.
Under the BC Labour Relations Code, that doesn't matter. The violation is the same whether you knew about the freeze or not. The Labour Relations Board looks at whether the employer changed a working condition unilaterally during the bargaining period — not whether they meant to.
Good faith bargaining isn't just about how you behave at the table. It governs how you run your entire workplace while you're getting there.
Practical Steps for Newly Certified Employers
If your workplace has recently been certified, here's how to protect yourself during the bargaining period:
Get an operational briefing immediately. Don't wait for bargaining to start. The freeze is already in effect, and your managers need to understand what that means before they make their next operational decision. A Labour Relations consultant can walk you through what the freeze means for your specific workplace and help you get ahead of issues before they become complaints.
Brief your supervisors and managers. Complaints don't come from policy decisions made in the boardroom — they come from a shift manager who updated a schedule without realizing they weren't supposed to. Your front-line leadership needs to know that the rules have changed and what to do when a situation arises.
Build a decision-making filter.Before implementing any change to wages, benefits, or working conditions, ask: Is this different from how we were operating before certification? If the answer is yes, stop and get advice before proceeding.
Document what was in place at the time of certification. Having a clear record of existing policies and practices makes it easier to demonstrate that subsequent decisions were consistent with the status quo — not a unilateral change.
When in doubt, raise it at the table. If there's a legitimate operational reason to change something during the bargaining period, the right move is to bring it to the union's attention and seek their agreement. This protects you and demonstrates good faith.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
An unfair labour practice complaint at the BC Labour Relations Board is not a minor inconvenience. It can delay bargaining, damage the relationship with the union before a first agreement is ever reached, and result in remedial orders that are difficult and costly to unwind.
More than that, it sets a tone. How you conduct yourself in the early days of certification shapes the dynamic at the table. Employers who inadvertently trigger complaints at the outset start bargaining from a defensive position. That's not where you want to be.
Symons Labour Strategies works with small and mid-sized employers from the moment of certification, not after a complaint has been filed. If your organization has recently been certified — or you're anticipating it — getting experienced guidance early is the most cost-effective decision you can make.
Book a free consultation with Holly to talk through where you are and what you need to know before your next move.
Symons Labour Strategies provides senior-level labour relations and collective bargaining consulting to small and mid-sized unionized employers across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.