Amazon closes Quebec operations after unionization, vows unrelated

Here are two separate pieces of information that you should certainly read as independent clauses without suggesting that they are related in any way: Last year, about 300 Amazon employees in a warehouse in Quebec. he formed a union. This week, Amazon announced that it will close its facilities in the Canadian province, cutting more than 1,700 permanent employees in favor of contract work.

Amazon’s official line is that the decision to close its operations is entirely related to cost reduction. For a statement given to the CBCthe company reviewed its operations in Québec and found “the return to a third-party delivery model supported by small local businesses, similar to the one we had until 2020, will allow us to offer the same excellent service and to providing even more savings to our customers in the long run.” The closings are expected to take place over the next two months.

The union doesn’t see it the same way. In a declarationunion president Caroline Senneville said the decision “makes no sense, either commercially or operationally”.

The timing certainly doesn’t make much sense if you only consider Amazon’s recent investments in the area. The company opened its first fulfillment center in Québec in 2020, and then expanded rapidly with five additional structures which opened in 2021. The company operates seven sites in total in Quebec, all of which opened under the guise that Amazon needed more workers to speed up deliveries in the growing market.

But then came the union. Last spring, workers at one of Amazon’s facilities in Laval, Quebec trade union with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (Confederate of National Trade Unions) in response to growing concern among workers regarding their safety and compensation. CorpWatch, a watchdog group, found that the rate of disabling injuries for Amazon warehouse workers at a Canadian facility was 19.42 per 100 workers per year, almost seven times higher than the average rate of 2.9 per 100 workers per year in all sectors. In 2022 only, 2022 Amazon Canada was ordered to pay nearly $5 million in damages for more than 1,300 workplace injuries suffered at its facilities.

The Laval facility union was waiting for Amazon to make its first offer on a contractwhich they expected to receive this month. The workers demanded a starting wage of $26 an hour, along with additional workplace protections.

That offer never came. Instead, Amazon outsources its work to contractors, who are routinely aggrieved extremely long working days with delivery deadlines so tight that they often don’t have time stop to use the bathroom and suffer from significantly higher rates of security breaches– all to save a couple of bucks.