Biography - Mr. Allen Ponak

Allen Ponak is a full time arbitrator with offices in Calgary and Saskatoon. He has been arbitrating for more than 30 years and has issued hundreds of awards including a number of interest arbitration decisions. His interest arbitration cases have covered health care, universities, police, and firefighters. Allen is a listed arbitrator in national and regional collective agreements and is listed in the Alberta Grievance Arbitration Roster.

Until 2006, Allen was a professor of industrial relations at the University of Calgary and the author of numerous research articles and books on union-management relations. In 2001, he published Strikes in Essential Services (with Adell and Grant), a national study of dispute resolution procedures in essential services. From 2011 to 2015, Allen was a special lecturer in the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan.

In 2015-16, Allen was president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, the leading North American association of labour arbitrators, and was the 2015 recipient of the Bora Laskin Award for outstanding contributions to labour law. His contributions to the province of Alberta were recognized with the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005. Allen completed his education at McGill, Michigan State University, and the University of Wisconsin.