By CCU President Greg Ball
There’s corporate greed. And then there’s Amazon level corporate greed.
Amazon announced on Wednesday it will close all its facilities in the entire province of Quebec in the coming weeks and cut nearly 2,000 jobs, 1,700 of which are permanent positions.
A company spokesperson said Amazon will outsource deliveries to smaller contractors, and insisted the decision was tied to “cost savings,” and not the recent unionization of more than 300 employees at a Laval, Quebec warehouse.
As members of the labour movement, we know a lie when we hear one. Amazon has a long and sorted history of union busting and strike breaking, has regularly harassed and fired union activists, and most tragically, has almost always gotten away with it.
Amazon workers first unionized in 2022 in New York, yet still don’t have a first contract three years later, and the corporate giant has utilized an army of lawyers to repeatedly thwart government orders to bargain collectively with them.
In Quebec’s case, workers at Amazon’s DXT4 warehouse in Laval won certification last spring. According to provincial labour laws, this victory obligated the company to bargain a contract with them, although it appears now that Amazon never will.
The company’s decision exemplifies the unchecked greed of corporate America, a machine that will go to any lengths to protect its profits, even if it means crushing the very people who built its empire. Amazon understands very well that organizing efforts were gaining momentum throughout North America, and especially Quebec, which has one of the highest rates of unionization in the entire continent.
Amazon workers in Quebec, like their counterparts around the world, have long endured grueling working conditions. From unsafe environments to punishing quotas, many employees have faced enormous stress just to keep their jobs.
These issues are not new. Amazon’s mistreatment of workers has been widely documented, from employees passing out on warehouse floors to Amazon delivery drivers using empty water bottles to urinate in to meet punitive timelines, endangering both themselves and others on the road.
But Quebec workers decided to fight back. Seeing the need for a collective voice, they organized and formed a union, demanding better wages, job security, and safer working conditions. Their victory should have been a milestone in the ongoing struggle for workers’ rights. Instead, Amazon responded in the most predictable way: punishing workers for simply exercising their legal rights enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The closure of the warehouses in Quebec is simply another move in Amazon’s union-busting playbook. By shutting down operations in response to union victories, Amazon sends a clear message: organize, and you will be out of a job.
This tactic is meant to instill fear in other workers, deterring them from demanding fair treatment. It is a classic case of corporate bullying, and it sets a dangerous precedent.
Amazon raked in over half a trillion (with a “T”) dollars of revenue globally last year. Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and former CEO, has accumulated a net worth of a quarter of a trillion dollars. The notion that a company of this financial magnitude cannot accommodate better wages and conditions for its own workforce is ludicrous.
The closure of these warehouses underscores the urgent need for stronger labour protections. Governments must step in to prevent corporations from retaliating against unionized workers. Amazon’s actions in Quebec highlight loopholes in labour laws that allow companies to undermine union efforts without facing real consequences.
Stronger labour laws would ensure companies cannot simply shut down facilities to avoid bargaining with workers. Governments should also impose strict penalties on corporations that engage in union-busting tactics, making it more costly for them to suppress worker power than to negotiate in good faith.
As for unions, some activists argue that site by site organizing isn’t enough against a corporate monolith like Amazon, and that to be successful, they must organize throughout the company’s entire network in North America on a mass scale.
Easier said than done, especially considering the resources Amazon puts into union busting. But it is a necessary discussion the union movement must have in an era of corporate concentration and giant monopolies. The labour movement can unionize Amazon, but it’s going to take enormous coordination, strategy and teamwork among its nearly 2 million member workforce throughout North America.
If history has proved anything, it’s that the labour movement is fiercely resilient, and can rebound against challenges that once seemed impossible. Amazon is just another chapter in that story, one that I believe will have a happy and righteous ending for workers everywhere.
