Lessons from Steam Whistle Brewing
Last week, Steam Whistle Brewing made headlines that had nothing to do with its popular pilsener in its iconic green bottle. It was revealed that the company’s Etobicoke, Ont. branch had been unionized.
The kicker? There was no vote.
The facility won automatic union recognition after the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) ruled the craft brewer unlawfully interfered in an organizing campaign.
It’s quite the fall from grace — Steam Whistle has been named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies by Deloitte Canada for 18 years in a row, making it a Platinum Club member.
That annual competition touts its “rigorous and independent process that evaluates the calibre of their management abilities and practices.” Winners are assessed based on four categories of a company's structure: strategy, capabilities and innovation, culture and commitment and governance and financials.
And Steam Whistle proudly touted its win yet again in March, citing numerous reasons for its top employer status:
“Long-term staff tenure, a genuine culture of pride in the product, and a team that spans brewing, hospitality, events, and logistics: this is the kind of workplace culture the Best Managed program specifically looks for. Not ping-pong tables and mission statements, but people who actually care about what they're making and how they're showing up.”
So, how does an employer go from a best managed company to one that’s unionized without a vote?
There are a few lessons here for HR, including the huge role of leadership, the risks of casual communications in the workplace, and the downfalls of hasty promotions.
Automatic certification in Ontario
Ontario’s labour act is pretty clear about unfair labour practices and how employers should not use “coercion, intimidation, threats, promises or undue influence” during a union drive.
Steam Whistle's union drive began in spring 2024 when a brewer contacted SEIU Local 2, with organizers quietly canvassing colleagues across the plant by May. The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) found management learned of the campaign almost immediately and responded by promoting the two lead organizers into largely symbolic supervisor roles before overruling their decisions and later firing one of them without cause.
The OLRB found that dismissal directly chilled the campaign: engagement collapsed in the largest department, leaving the union just five signatures short of triggering a vote.
But the labour board concluded that the firing was at least partly responsible and that no lesser remedy would suffice, ordering automatic union certification instead of a representation vote.
‘We’ve nipped this in the bud’
While we don’t know all the details, a big red flag in this scenario was the communications among top management as the union drive gained steam.
As an example: Supervisor Brian Hann texted CEO Greg Taylor to say brewer Geoff Albrecht "is trying to gather people to get a union," adding, "We don't need that." Taylor agreed.
Days later, the leadership decided to promote Albrecht and another organizer, Ian Fraser, as seen in these messages detailed in the decision:
“I think we promote those two guys in the morning, if possible. Then let [Employee A] go at 3 o’clock. It will outsmart everyone,” said the CEO to vice president of HR Lorna Willner.
“If we let [Employee A] go at 3 o’clock and then try and promote those guys later on that day or the next, it just won’t go off as well
Taylor also said, “We cannot be seen to be offering them money to persuade them not to join the union… I think we've nipped this in the bud."
The transcripts are a reminder that even the smallest communication — such as texts or Teams messages — can count for a lot when a labour board is looking into an employer’s conduct during a union drive. Informal, casual comments can carry a lot of weight.
Pressure from leadership
HR at an organization might work very hard to hire the right people, retain the top performers, build an inclusive, positive culture and follow the rules.
But what if leadership is pushing a different agenda?
We saw that recently when the former deputy minister Christiane Fox at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) “used the weight of her position” to champion an acquaintance for a management role, despite internal HR concerns that he did not meet merit criteria and lacked required experience and bilingual skills.
Or when OC Transpo used appointments to fill management vacancies where candidates “did not meet the education or the experience requirement of the position” and were screened in without meeting minimum qualifications, practices the auditor said “create unfairness and inequity within staffing processes.”
At Steam Whistle, the CEO sought to have two of the brewers promoted with the hopes that would quell the union drive. This internal mobility ultimately backfired after one of them was told they must then fire another employee. This didn’t go down well.
“It doesn’t say it in our job description. We clarified this,” said Fraser in a recording. “I just thought it was clear when we picked up these positions that they didn’t have higher [sic] fire capability. To be frank, I just don’t want that blood on my hands.”
He resisted and was later dismissed, without cause.
Promoting people so they’re removed from the bargaining unit and lose their influence is always a questionable move, not only for its blatant attempt at manipulation but because of the missteps that can follow when people don’t behave as expected. They might be ill-equipped for the new role, unclear on their new responsibilities or resist pressure from above, leading to further conflict.
And obviously dismissing a recently promoted employee does not look good, for the employer or HR.
The real lesson for HR
Steam Whistle's fall from Platinum Club member to unionized without a vote probably didn't happen because leadership set out to break the law. It looks like it happened because, under pressure, they treated a union drive as a problem to be managed rather than a signal to listen to staff.
As a result, “private” texts became a matter of public record, promotions that looked clever came to look coercive, and the effort to keep two organizers on side ended in a dismissal that cost the company any chance of a fair vote.
Most leaders already know that they can’t directly interfere in a union-organizing drive — in theory. It's when reality hits and an actual drive happens, in your workplace, that the instinct to move fast to try and curb the tide leads to hasty, ill-thought-out decisions.
That's the time when leadership should slow down, take a breath, and bring in employment counsel. That’s the time when they should take a good, hard look at what’s gone wrong and if there’s time to make improvements that won’t look desperate and inappropriate — or illegal — in hindsight.
The best managed companies aren't the ones that never face a union drive, they're the ones that try to avoid ending up in a decision like this.
