Intelligent Collective Agreements
We work with your team to digitise every collective agreement you administer, ground each grievance in its own agreement’s language, and stand alongside you to make sense of what the CBA means whenever a question comes up.
One agreement or twenty, Sertus understands each one independently — the AI never blends them. And whether you’re a small local with three stewards or a larger team running a full caseload, we shape the partnership to how you work.
Built by the co-author of Canadian Labour Arbitration(Brown & Beatty) — the reference text Canadian arbitrators cite.
Your Agreements, Made Useful
Each CBA you administer becomes a living instrument the rest of the system reads from. If you have multiple agreements, each one stays its own — Sertus never treats them as interchangeable.
Digital Agreements, Built With You
- PDF in, structure out: Upload each CBA as a PDF — even scanned ones. The system parses each into articles, sections, and step templates with deadlines and event timers attached. One agreement or twenty, the same process.
- Procedures configured per agreement: Step procedures vary CBA by CBA. We set up each agreement’s step templates separately so “Step 2 reply due 10 working days after the meeting” in one CBA and “5 calendar days” in another both behave correctly.
- Wired into every grievance and complaint: A digitised agreement isn’t a reference document tucked away in a tab. Each one powers the cases filed under it — the right articles surface on each grievance, the right deadlines drive every step, the right language shows up when your team needs it.
- Editable any time: Your team can see, search, and correct the structured versions any time. When a CBA gets re-signed, we re-onboard it with you — without losing the cases that lived under the previous one.
AI That Knows Each of Your Agreements
- One CBA per case, never blended: When a grievance is filed under a particular agreement, the AI reads only that agreement. Article 17 in one CBA is not the same thing as Article 17 in another — Sertus never confuses them, never quotes the wrong one.
- Every grievance, against the right articles: Whoever’s handling the case — business agent, steward, or a member helping out — opens it and the relevant clauses from the applicable CBA are already surfaced, with citations.
- Search across, or within: Ask a question of one agreement, or compare how three of them handle the same topic side by side. “What are the seniority rules for layoffs?” finds the answer per CBA — and you can see where they agree and disagree.
- Tuned per agreement, not templated: Two CBAs that look similar can disagree on subtle definitions — what counts as “just cause,” how seniority ties break, when a probationary period ends. We tune the AI’s reading of each agreement against its own definitions.
- Citations your team can verify: Nothing fabricated, nothing inferred from the open web — every claim points back to a section of the right agreement that anyone can click through and read.
What Your CBA Teaches You
Once your CBA is digital and every grievance is article-linked, you stop guessing about what your agreement actually does for you — day to day, and over the long haul.
Day to day
Help when a question comes up
- Answer member questions fast: A member calls asking about overtime. The CBA chat finds the article in seconds, quotes the text, and explains how it applies — even if nobody on the team has done labour relations before.
- Prep for a meeting without a lawyer: Step meeting in three days? Sertus pulls the relevant articles, summarises the case, and drafts talking points. The kind of prep that used to cost a retainer.
- See what’s coming up: Deadlines from the CBA tick forward automatically. You see what’s due this week without keeping a spreadsheet.
- We’re a message away: When the answer isn’t obvious or the situation is unusual, our team is alongside yours. No ticket queue.
Over time
Patterns that reshape your CBA
- Which clauses keep showing up: Every grievance is article-linked, so the same clause appearing in 14 disputes over a cycle stops being a feeling and becomes a number.
- Mid-term amendments and MOAs: Patterns don’t have to wait for bargaining. When the same friction shows up over and over, you can address it with a side letter or MOA — and we’ll help you frame it.
- Bargaining-ready when the round comes: When the next cycle is up, the dispute data is already organised. We sit with whoever’s preparing the asks — committee, exec, or just you — and turn it into briefs you can take to the table.
- Shaped to how you work: No two locals or LR teams are the same. The format, the depth, the cadence — we shape it to you, not the other way around.
Let's Talk About Your CBA
We'll walk through what Sertus does with your specific agreement and where the partnership could go from there.