Amazon closures a ‘slap in the face’ to Quebec workers, union says

Article content

Amazon.com Inc. announced on Wednesday that it will close all its Quebec warehouses and lay off about 1,700 full-time employees — a move the union representing workers at the e-commerce behemoth’s only unionized Canadian facility called a “slap in the face for all workers in Quebec.”

Article content

Article content

“Following a recent review of our Quebec operations, we’ve seen that returning to a third-party delivery model supported by local small businesses, similar to what we had until 2020, will allow us to provide the same great service and even more savings to our customers over the long run,” Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait said in a statement via email. “This decision wasn’t made lightly, and we’re offering impacted employees a package that includes up to 14 weeks’ pay after facilities close and transitional benefits, like job placement resources.”

Article content

Amazon opened its first Quebec warehouse in 2020, expanding to a total of seven facilities in the province: one fulfillment centre, two sorting centres, three delivery centres and one AMXL fulfilment centre that handles large and heavy items.

The closures will also affect about 250 temporary seasonal employees whose contracts already specified end dates. Temporary seasonal employees will be compensated until the last day of their contract, Amazon said.

Amazon employs more than 46,000 full-time and part-time workers across Canada in its warehouses, technology hubs and corporate offices, according to its website.

The DXT4 warehouse in Laval is the only unionized Amazon facility in Canada and received accreditation in May after two years of organizing with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). Since July, the union had been working to negotiate a collective agreement.

CSN said in a statement that it learned about the closures on Wednesday morning via email from one of Amazon’s lawyers, and that “there is no doubt that the closures announced today are part of an anti-union campaign against the CSN and against Amazon employees.”

Article content

Article content

CSN president Caroline Senneville said in an interview that the union’s point of view is that the closures are meant to “intimidate” workers who want to unionize.

“The message Amazon is sending is, ‘We like you as the clients, but we’re not going to respect your rights as citizens. Your money is good enough for us, but not, not your labour laws,’” she said.

Senneville said workers are still processing the shock at losing their jobs, and CSN will support its members and explore its legal options in the coming weeks.

“We’ll make sure that every penny that is due to them will be given to them, and then we will set up workshops and we will try to help them find other jobs,” she said. “I can tell you also that our legal department is on it to see what can be done.”

Information provided by an Amazon spokesperson said the decision to revert to third-party operations was based on being able to deliver the same service at a lower cost. They said the third-party model is for delivery only, and Quebec customers’ orders will be fulfilled by warehouses in Canada and the U.S.

Workers at the Amazon warehouse in Delta, B.C., also voted to unionize last May, a process that is still in the works as Unifor goes through case management meetings with the BC Labour Relations Board, said Justin Gniposky, director of organizing at Unifor.

Article content

“People are looking for a meaningful wage. They’re not asking for the moon. They’re asking for a reasonable wage increase that they can rely on year over year, which a collective agreement could deliver for them, and they’re asking for things like work-life balance and scheduling that can meet their needs,” he said.

Adam King, assistant professor at the University of Manitoba’s labour program, said Canada’s provincial labour laws are “quite a bit stronger,” particularly in Quebec and British Columbia, compared to the federal framework in the United States, where Amazon has been accused of trying to stymie unionization efforts.

“Some of the things that Amazon is widely known to do, they can’t do in Canada and particularly in Quebec,” he said. “For example, in the United States, they force workers into what are called captive audience meetings, where they make them attend these mandatory meetings where they tell them all the things that are wrong with unionization and why they shouldn’t. You can’t do that in Canada.”

King said it’s a “mischaracterization” to say that Amazon is shuttering its Quebec operations, when it’s shifting its business model.

“They’re not closing their businesses in Quebec and foregoing all of that revenue and profit. They still want those Canadian dollars,” he said.

Article content