The Ontario Labour Relations Board has certified Unifor as the bargaining agent for service technicians and a customer service representative at Tawi Canada in Markham, rejecting the employer’s argument that the positions were too different to share a bargaining unit.
The decision resolved a dispute over whether a single customer service representative should be included alongside two service technicians in the union’s proposed bargaining unit.
Tawi Canada, a subsidiary of the Piab Group that specializes in vacuum lift products, employs 10 people at its Markham facility. The company argued the customer service representative performed office-based administrative work while service technicians handled technical field and warehouse duties, making them incompatible for collective bargaining purposes.
The employer proposed a technician-only unit, citing differences in work locations, core duties, compensation structures, and safety requirements. The company noted the customer service representative worked standard office hours on salary without overtime, while service technicians worked hourly with overtime, required specialized safety training and personal protective equipment, and operated company vehicles.
“The CSR and STs operate in vastly different conditions, and have different needs and priorities,” the employer argued, warning of potential bargaining conflicts and noting the customer service representative sometimes scheduled work for technicians and reviewed their hours.
Overlap in daily duties
The union countered that both positions shared substantial common ground. According to an agreed statement of facts, both groups worked in the same location, maintained similar hours, received identical benefits including a $1,200 health spending account, reported to the same general manager, and were compensated on the same schedule with annual bonuses based on company revenue targets.
The tribunal found significant functional integration between the roles. The customer service representative spent up to an hour daily in the warehouse performing tasks including monitoring inventory, receiving shipments, picking and packing orders, and coordinating with service technicians on customer deliveries.
“The work of the CSR is consistently essential to the ST’s work, and vice versa, and the degree of functional coherence and interdependence between these two roles is substantial,” the tribunal determined.
The board noted service technicians also performed administrative work at the office at least twice weekly, including completing service reports, processing orders prepared by the customer service representative, and conducting online training at a shared computer.
Both positions involved preparing picklists, signing off on inventory, receiving and unpacking shipments, tracking inventory levels, overseeing freight pickups, and communicating with customers—tasks the tribunal found went beyond “incidental and limited” overlap.
Fragmentation concerns
The tribunal expressed concern that excluding the customer service representative would create problematic fragmentation in such a small workplace. As a single-employee classification, the position could not form its own bargaining unit and would be denied access to collective bargaining.
“The Board does not find any reason to deny the CSR access to the fruits of their labour under a collective bargaining regime,” the tribunal stated.
The employer had requested the board exercise discretion to hold a vote allowing the customer service representative to decide whether to join the unit. The union opposed this, arguing it would violate the individual’s right to a secret ballot since their vote would be obvious in a three-person unit.
The tribunal declined to address the voting request, finding it unnecessary given its determination that the combined unit was appropriate.
The board noted it frequently places different employee groups in single bargaining units without negative labour relations impacts. While acknowledging differences between the positions, the tribunal found they were “not so great as to cause serious labour relations problems.”
The tribunal determined the employer’s concerns about future bargaining conflicts were “purely speculative and hypothetical.”
A representation vote had been held in March 2025 for the service technician positions, with the customer service representative’s ballot segregated pending the board’s unit determination. With certification requiring more than 50 per cent support and both technicians having voted, the tribunal ruled the segregated ballot need not be counted.
The certified bargaining unit covers all service technicians and customer service representatives at the Markham location, excluding supervisors, those above supervisor rank, sales, and finance positions.
See the full ruling here: Unifor v TAWI Canada Inc., 2025 CanLII 135707 (ON LRB).
