An Amazon warehouse in Laval, Que., on April 22, 2024.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
Amazon Canada AMZN-Q is closing all seven of its Quebec warehouses and laying off 1,700 permanent staff in a move that representatives for some of its workers say is part of an anti-union campaign by the company.
The online shopping giant is returning to a third-party delivery system, which it employed in the province before 2020, after a review of its Quebec operations, Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait said in a statement Wednesday.
“This decision wasn’t made lightly,” she said, adding that affected employees are being offered up to 14 weeks of pay after facilities close and transitional benefits such as job placement resources.
Amazon Canada says it will close all of its Quebec warehouses and lay off nearly 2,000 staff over the next two months. The e-commerce giant positioned the move as a way to provide "even more savings to our customers over the long run" and dismissed concerns that it was linked to a recent unionization push in the province. (Jan. 22, 2025)
The Canadian Press
In May, staff at a warehouse in Laval, Que., became the first Amazon workers in Canada to unionize – and only the second in North America, after a warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y. In October, Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail ruled against the company after it challenged the unionization, claiming that the process by which employees unionized was unlawful.
The closings will take place over the next two months and will include one fulfilment centre, two sorting centres, three delivery stations and one large-parcel delivery station, which is co-located with a sorting centre. Approximately 250 temporary seasonal employees will be affected, in addition to the 1,700 permanent staff.
Caroline Senneville, president of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, which represents up to 300 employees at the Laval warehouse, said in a statement Wednesday that the company’s decision was made after years of it pushing back against union drives. “This is a slap in the face for all workers in Quebec,” she said.
“There is no doubt that the closures announced today are part of an anti-union campaign against the CSN and Amazon employees. This is a gesture that is contrary to the provisions of the Labour Code, which we will firmly oppose,” she said.
This announcement was made during the union’s efforts to negotiate its first collective agreement with Amazon and the two sides hadn’t been able to agree on anything, Ms. Senneville said. She said Amazon’s decision is an attempt to intimidate workers across the country.
Ms. Senneville said CSN will focus on helping union members find new jobs while its legal team awaits further details from Amazon, which could help it build a case against the employer. As an example of other precedent-setting cases, she cited a Supreme Court of Canada decision from 2014 in which the court ruled in favour of a union representing former Walmart employees in Jonquière, Que., who argued the company broke labour law when it shuttered the store shortly after workers voted to unionize.
“It sends out such a bad message to ordinary people, who get up early in the morning trying to make a living when the price of everything is going up, that they’re disposable,” she said.
In Delta, B.C., Unifor filed an unfair labour practice complaint against Amazon, after the union alleged the company increased seasonal hiring to water down union support in a warehouse it had applied to certify. In May, a confidential vote was held to determine the certification, but the results remain sealed because of Unifor’s complaint.
Félix Trudeau, a warehouse clerk at Amazon’s Laval warehouse and president of the union there, said the union was supposed to meet with its employer Wednesday for negotiations. Instead, he received an early-morning e-mail saying that he, and his fellow employees, were being let go.
“It’s an insult to the workers of Amazon in Quebec. It’s an attack against the working class in Quebec. It’s an attack against our right to unionize,” he said of the company’s decision.
In 2024, he said 160 of about 250 workers in his warehouse reported workplace injuries, largely related to the repetitive strain of their work. In addition to addressing health and safety issues, he said, the union wanted to improve their compensation.
Currently, he said workers start at $20 per hour and max out at $22 per hour after three years. The union wanted to change that to start at $26 per hour and max out at $30 per hour after three years.
In December, Amazon released a report in which it stated it was investing more than $100-million into pay increases for customer fulfilment, and middle- and last-mile logistics employees in Canada. The company said it would bring its average front-line starting wage to $22.25 an hour, up from close to $20.80 in 2023.
The company says it has made investments worth more than $50-billion into its Canadian operations since 2010.
Stephanie Ross, associate professor in the school of labour studies at McMaster University, said Amazon’s announcement casts a chill on organizing efforts nationwide, and she struggles to believe it’s unrelated to the union efforts.
“It really would stretch the imagination to think that their loss at the tribunal was not informing this decision to leave Quebec and to revert to a model of delivery that is infinitely more difficult for unions to organize,” Dr. Ross said.
The third-party delivery model that Amazon says it’s reverting back to doesn’t lend itself to unionization, Dr. Ross said. Often, people are hired as independent contractors through a platform, such as an app, which makes it extremely difficult for them to organize under a common bargaining unit. And even if they did achieve unionization, Amazon could simply decide to end their contract, she added.
“It’s kind of like, for the union, a case of Whac-a-Mole. You’re always trying to figure out, how do you actually unionize a situation that’s becoming more and more fragmented?” she said.
According to Ms. Agrait, Amazon has long-standing relationships with third-party carriers across Quebec and returning to this model is the right decision for its business and customers.
François-Philippe Champagne, federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, said Wednesday on X that he spoke to the head of Amazon Canada to express his dismay and frustration about the news. “This is not the way business is done in Canada,” he wrote.
Quebec Premier François Legault said Wednesday his thoughts were with the workers being laid off as well as their families, adding his government will help them try to find other employment. He noted that the construction sector needs thousands of workers and that there are public programs to train new recruits.
Mr. Legault stopped short of any criticism of Amazon, however. And while Marc Tanguay, interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, said unionization efforts by workers probably played into Amazon’s decision, neither the Premier nor any of his ministers made that link publicly.
“We will do everything we can do to make sure those workers land on their feet but Amazon is a private company,” Mr. Legault told reporters in Saint-Sauveur, after a caucus meeting of his Coalition Avenir Québec party. “This is a business decision by a private company. I can’t start managing a private company.”