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

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Amazon.com Inc. announced Wednesday that it will close all its Quebec warehouses and lay off about 1,700 full-time employees — a move that represents the union’s Canadian factory, the only union of the e-commerce behemoth, known as “slapping all workers in Quebec.”

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“After a recent review of the Quebec business, we have seen a return to a third-party delivery model supported by local small businesses, similar to ours by 2020, which will allow us to deliver the same quality service in the long run and even provide more savings for our customers,” Amazon spokesman Barbara Agrait said in a statement via email. “This decision was not easily made, and we offer a package for affected employees that includes up to 14 weeks of salary, facility closures and transition benefits such as job placement resources.”

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Amazon opened its first Quebec warehouse in 2020, expanding to seven facilities in the province: a fulfillment center, two classification centers, three delivery centers and an AMXL fulfillment center that handles large items.

The closure will also affect about 250 temporary seasonal employees whose contracts have specified a final date. Amazon said temporary seasonal employees will be compensated until the last day of the contract.

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

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Laval’s DXT4 warehouse is Canada’s only union Amazon factory and was certified in May after two years of organizing with Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN). The union has been working to negotiate a collective agreement since July.

CSN said in a statement that it learned about the Wednesday morning closure through an email from an Amazon lawyer, “the closure announced today is part of an anti-union campaign against CSN and Amazon employees.”

CSN president Caroline Senneville said in an interview that the union’s view was that the purpose of the closure was to “terrorize” workers who wanted the union.

“The message Amazon sends is, ‘We like you as a customer, but we don’t respect your rights as a citizen. Your money is good enough for us, but not your labor law.’

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Sunneville said workers are still dealing with the shock of losing their jobs, and CSN will support its members and explore its legal options in the coming weeks.

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

An Amazon spokesperson said the decision to revert to third-party operations was based on the ability to provide the same service at a lower cost. They said the third-party model is for delivery only and that orders for Quebec customers will be fulfilled by warehouses in Canada and the United States

Unifor organization director Justin Gniposky said Amazon warehouses in the BC Delta also voted to decide Unionize, a process that is still underway as Unifor held a case management meeting with the BC Labor Relations Commission.

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“People are looking for meaningful wages. They are not asking for the moon. They ask for reasonable wage increases, they can rely on for a year, which is what a collective agreement can provide for them, and they ask for work-life balance and schedule that can meet their needs.”

Adam King, an assistant professor of the University of Manitoba’s Labor Research Program, said Canada’s provincial labor laws are “much stronger” than the U.S. federal framework, especially in Quebec and British Columbia, where Amazon is accused of trying to block union efforts.

“Some of the things that Amazon is well known to be in Canada, especially in Quebec cannot do,” he said. “In the United States, for example, they force workers to attend so-called captive audience meetings, get them to these mandatory meetings, where they tell them all the mistakes with the union and why they shouldn’t do it. You can’t do that in Canada.”

King said it was a “mistake sign” to say that Amazon was closing operations in Quebec while changing its business model.

“They didn’t end their business in Quebec and canceled all revenue and profits. They still want these Canadian dollars,” he said.

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