Amazon’s January 22 closure of all seven of its warehouses in Quebec is a shocking and unprecedented attack on North American workers. Not only does this decision leave as many as 4,500 workers suddenly without a job, but it marks a major escalation in Amazon’s decades-long fight against its workers’ attempts to collectively organize. There is every reason to believe Amazon will use this tactic to prevent union drives elsewhere in Canada. This escalation calls for a coordinated fight-back from unions across the country.
Despite Amazon’s claims to the contrary, the decision to close all of its warehouses and sorting centres in Quebec is clearly a union-busting tactic.
Amazon’s primary tactic to prevent unionization at its North American facilities (pockets of Amazon workers in Europe are unionized) has been to delay, delay, delay. Workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in New York City were the first North American Amazon workers to form a union recognized by the U.S. National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) in April 2022—the culmination of years of organizing. Since then, Amazon has refused to even come to the table to bargain a collective agreement with the Amazon Labour Union, which is now part of the Teamsters. In December 2024 workers at JFK8 went on strike in an effort to bring Amazon to the bargaining table, however an agreement has yet to be reached.
In Quebec, Amazon workers were able to overcome the corporation’s delay tactics much quicker than in the U.S. Quebec, like a number of other provinces, has single-step certification and first contract arbitration legislation.
Single-step certification—sometimes referred to as card check certification—means that workers are able to unionize by having a majority of workers sign union cards, preventing companies like Amazon from engaging in illegal anti-union campaigns during union certification votes. First contract arbitration means that, if bargaining reaches an impasse, either the union or employer have the right to request that a contract be drafted and imposed by an arbitrator. This is typically to prevent employers from blocking negotiations until the union loses steam—the exact tactic Amazon is currently using in New York.
In May 2024 workers at the DXT4 Amazon facility in Laval became the first in Canada to successfully form a union recognized by the labour board after a majority of the 230 workers signed union cards.
Following the certification, Amazon made a brazen attempt to challenge Quebec’s single-step certification process as unconstitutional, a claim that was quickly swatted away in Quebec’s Superior Court. The company was also fined $30,000 for posting anti-union messages throughout its DXT4 facility, the second time Amazon had been fined for anti-union messaging at its Montreal-area facilities.
While Amazon attempted to fight certification in court, bargaining for a first contract reached an impasse. Workers at the Laval warehouse, similar to their counterparts in New York, were seeking improvements to compensation and health and safety at work. As one worker reported to the Globe and Mail, 160 of 250 workers at the Laval facility have reported workplace injuries. Wages at the Laval warehouse began at $20 per hour and maxed out at $22 per hour after three years.
It was increasingly clear in January that Quebec’s labour tribunal would have to impose an arbitrated contract due to Amazon’s stalling tactics. Rather than face the first collective agreement won by Amazon workers in North America, the company made the sudden announcement that it would close all of its Quebec warehouses and sorting facilities immediately.
While Amazon is letting go of its staff at all Quebec warehouses and sorting facilities, that does not mean Amazon is ceasing operations in Quebec. Rather, the company will outsource its operations to third-party contractors in order to get around its obligations under labour law. All of Amazon’s delivery services around the world already operate on a third-party contractor model. Now, the company will outsource warehousing and sorting operations to Quebec contractors as well.
The message Amazon is sending to workers is clear—the corporation will do everything in its power to prevent unionization from taking hold in its facilities. This is meant to cause a chilling effect on union drives across North America. With union drives currently underway at Amazon facilities in BC, there is every reason to suspect the company will engage in similar actions there.
So what can be done to fight back?
Governments could pass new legislation to designate Amazon as a ‘joint-employer’ in its contracts with third-parties, which would allow workers at those contractors to negotiate directly with Amazon. This would eliminate the ‘get out of jail free’ card Amazon is currently using to get around Quebec’s labour relations system. However, it is still not clear how ‘joint-employer’ legislation could be enacted on the ground, likely taking years to come to fruition. What is clear is that rank-and-file unionists need to mount a larger fight back across the country.
Some of that is already happening in Quebec. A boycott campaign, led by former Amazon workers, is gaining momentum. Workers and their allies are standing outside metro stations every day, handing out flyers encouraging people to boycott the company. Hundreds of unions and community organizations have already signed on to the boycott. Workers and their allies are outside Amazon facilities every morning holding picket lines, and organizing weekly protests in Montreal.
The municipal government of Montreal, for its part, has ordered employees to stop making work-related purchases on Amazon. Major media in Quebec is running stories outlining the steps readers can take to boycott the company. The provincial government has said it plans to review its contracts with Amazon with an eye towards switching to local suppliers.
Between Amazon’s illegal union-busting and the ongoing threat of economic warfare from the U.S., there’s a real appetite right now to go after big American tech companies like Amazon, and Quebec’s Amazon workers are seizing on it.
They’ve also caught onto a reality that the labour movement in the rest of Canada would be best to acknowledge as well—that taking on companies like Amazon will require workers’ organization to expand their toolbox beyond the traditional legal system of labour relations.
Workers at Amazon’s Quebec warehouses played within that system, at first. They organized a union according to the law—laws which Amazon repeatedly broke—and won their certification. They went to the negotiating table, and came to a predictable impasse. They began the process of going to legal and formal arbitration.
For Amazon, none of that mattered. The company decided that it would rather flip the table over and leave than “lose” the game by being forced to sign a collective agreement. The company attempted, at every chance, to subvert Quebec’s legal labour relations system—including challenging its constitutionality in court—and, when all else failed, they decided they would just leave in a flagrant and highly public act of illegal union-busting.
To be clear, this will be the case in every jurisdiction in Canada where workers have the audacity to fight for improved working conditions. Amazon has no intention of respecting the labour relations systems in any Canadian province, and will actively work to undermine them.
If Amazon is refusing to be boxed in by labour relations systems, then workers must refuse in kind. That means that, like the workers in Quebec, the labour movement across Canada needs to begin planning for broader political struggle and social mobilization rather than exclusively relying on bureaucratized back-and-forth of negotiations, mediations, and arbitration. Amazon won’t be beaten at the bargaining table alone. It will be beaten in the streets.
