Grievance Software for Federally Regulated Workplaces

Federal labour relations in Canada covers a specific set of industries: banks, airlines, rail, interprovincial and international trucking, telecommunications, broadcasting, uranium mining, marine shipping, port operations, Crown corporations, and most First Nations government employers. If that list describes your workplace, your collective agreements are governed by Part I of the Canada Labour Code, not by a provincial statute — and the Canada Industrial Relations Board is the administrative tribunal that hears certification, bargaining, and unfair labour practice matters.

Binding grievance arbitration under each collective agreement resolves most day-to-day disputes, and federal arbitrators cite a body of Canadian arbitration case law that counsel across federally regulated industries actively rely on. Sertus is built by the co-author of Canadian Labour Arbitration(Brown & Beatty) — the reference text Canadian arbitrators cite — so the platform understands federal practice at a structural level. Step timelines reference the collective agreement itself. Grievance types map to the categories federal arbitrators recognise. Deadline alerts fire before the clock runs out on an arbitration referral.

Federally regulated employers tend to operate across multiple provinces and in both official languages. Sertus parses and indexes collective agreements in English and French, and centralises labour relations work across multiple bargaining units and collective agreements in a single searchable workspace that follows each case from intake to settlement or award.

Federal jurisdiction has a structural feature that sets it apart from the provinces: a single employer may bargain with several unions covering different occupational groups, and those agreements may apply across the entire country. A major bank, airline, or rail operator can have one bargaining unit covering customer service, another covering technical staff, and another covering pilots or operating crews — each with its own agreement, its own grievance procedure, and its own body of arbitration practice. When the same clause is interpreted differently at two locations, the employer and the union need to see that drift early. Sertus treats each bargaining unit as a distinct object and supports cross-agreement comparison so drift is visible as a pattern rather than as an after-the-fact discovery.

The federal public service is a distinct regime of its own. The Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act governs the core public administration and separate agencies, with the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board (FPSLREB) rather than the CIRB hearing adjudication matters. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), and other federal unions bargain with the Treasury Board as employer. Sertus keeps that regime distinct — files carry the applicable statute, the agreement structure, and the procedural framework — so counsel do not have to translate between regimes when moving between files.