EDMONTON, Alta. – A new report by the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), titled Poisoning the Well, has concluded that employers in the province are responsible for far more threats and intimidation in union certification drives than the unions are. According to the report, published on June 7, the Alberta Labour Relations Board has seen 34 unfair-labour-practice cases since 2001, 28 of which involved complaints against employers and six of which involved complaints against unions. The Board upheld 17 of the complaints against the employers and only one against a union, the report added. Poisoning the Well also described incidents in which employers had fired workers for associating with unions, threatened to close shop or used bullying tactics to prevent fair certification voting. “When workers try to unionize their workplace, the union has no power over those workers. The employer has all the power—to fire workers, to cut their hours and to intimidate them,” said AFL president Gil McGowan in a press statement upon the report’s release. “This has led to a culture of employer impunity.” The report followed the recent adoption of the Fair and Family-Friendly Workplaces Act, which offers tools for the Board to discourage employer intimidation. Poisoning the Well is available online at https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/afl/pages/156/attachments/original/1496781613/Poisoning_the_Well.pdf?1496781613.