Why a unionized warehouse in Quebec posed a threat to Amazon
Last May, about 230 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Laval, Que., successfully unionized — a historic first in Canada at the retail giant.
The CSN, the union that represents the workers in Laval, said workers were dissatisfied with what they described as a hectic work pace, low wages and inadequate health and safety measures.
Amazon has only one other unionized workforce in North America, in Staten Island, N.Y. It was certified in 2022 but still doesn’t have a contract.
In Quebec, the province’s stronger labour laws would have soon forced the two parties to negotiate a collective agreement or could have imposed arbitration on them if they didn’t reach a deal, experts said.
“I think essentially what’s happening here is that the clock was ticking down on a first collective agreement,” said Adam King, an assistant professor in the labour studies program at the University of Manitoba.
“Amazon had tried to contest the certification of this bargaining unit in Quebec and lost.”
A collective bargaining agreement could have led to the union expanding to other facilities in the province, King suggested.
That won’t happen anymore, now that Amazon has announced it will shut all seven of its facilities in Quebec, lay off 1,700 permanent employees and outsource its work to third-party companies. The decision comes after a period of rapid expansion; the first facility in the province opened in July 2020.
Amazon declined an interview for this story.
In a statement, a spokesperson maintained the decision was about reducing costs.
“This decision is about offering the best service we can to customers in a way that’s efficient and cost effective,” spokesperson Steve Kelly said in an email.
“We’ve been using third-party carriers in Quebec for many years. Returning to a well-tested third-party only model will allow us to provide the same great service and even more savings to our customers over the long run.”
The Walmart case
The Amazon case recalls another dispute 20 years ago in Quebec involving Walmart Canada. In 2004, that company closed a store in Jonquière, Que., citing profitability troubles just months after workers achieved union certification. The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represented the workers, challenged the move.
In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada found the company defied Quebec labour law when it shut down after unionization.
Amazon announced Wednesday that it will shut down all seven of its facilities in the province in the coming weeks, insisting the decision was tied to cost savings and not a new union at its Laval warehouse.
Barry Eidlin, an associate professor of sociology at McGill University, said Amazon shutting down solely its Laval warehouse would have been a clear violation of Quebec labour law, following the 2014 decision.
It would have been “a unilateral change in working conditions in the…
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