It usually starts with an email.
You open your inbox and find a message from the Labour Relations Board of British Columbia. Attached are formal documents: a union certification application, a notice of proceeding, deadlines, and instructions for submitting your employee list and payroll information.
You may have had no warning. Or you may have sensed something was coming — unusual conversations, a shift in the atmosphere on the floor. Either way, the legal process is already in motion before you've had a chance to think.
The timelines move fast. In many cases, employers have 24 to 48 hours to respond to the Board's initial requirements. That is not much time if you've never been through this before — and most small business owners haven't.
What Certification Actually Means
Certification marks the start of one of the most consequential processes a small business owner will face — negotiating a first collective agreement under the BC Labour Relations Code. The language you agree to in that first agreement will govern your workplace for years. What you concede now becomes the floor for every negotiation that follows.
Employers navigate first contracts successfully every day. But the ones who do it well almost always have experienced labour relations advice in their corner from the start — before the table gets set, not after things go sideways.
What Newly Certified Employers Often Don't Know
A few things that catch small business owners off guard:
- Good faith bargaining is a legal obligation— but it doesn't mean saying yes. Under the BC Labour Relations Code, you are required to bargain seriously and in good faith. That is not the same as agreeing to everything the union puts on the table.
- The union has done this before. You likely haven't. Union negotiators are experienced. Your team may be sitting at a bargaining table for the first time. That experience gap is real, and preparation is how you close it.
- Language matters as much as numbers. Vague wording around scheduling, discipline, or management rights doesn't just create friction — it creates grievances, arbitrations, and costs you didn't budget for.
Large organizations have entire teams dedicated to labour relations. Small businesses don't — and yet the pressure at the bargaining table is just as real, the complexity just as significant, and the cost of getting it wrong just as high.
What To Do Right Now
If you've just received certification notice, start here:
- Get advice before you act.The post-certification period carries legal risk. Talk to a labour relations professional before making any changes to wages, schedules, or working conditions.
- Brief your supervisors.Your front-line managers are now operating in a new legal environment. They need guidance on what they can and cannot say or do.
- Start thinking about bargaining. Who will represent you at the table? What are your operational priorities? These questions take time to answer well — and bargaining notices can arrive faster than you expect.
Employers who come through first contract bargaining in the strongest position are the ones who treat it seriously from day one.
Holly Symons is a labour relations consultant with 25+ years of senior LR experience, serving small and mid-sized unionized employers across BC, Alberta, and Ontario. Book a free consultation to talk through where you are and what comes next.