Amazon Shuts Down Québec Operations After Unionization, Swears It’s Unrelated

Here are two separate facts that you must read as independent clauses without suggesting they are in any way related: Last year, about 300 Amazon workers in a warehouse in Quebec formed a union. This week, Amazon announcement That it will close its facilities in the Canadian province, cutting more than 1,700 permanent employees in favor of contractor labor.

Amazon’s official line is that its decision to shut down operations is entirely related to cost cutting. Every Statement to CBCThe company reviewed its Québec operations and found that “returning to a third-party delivery model supported by local small businesses, which we have had until 2020, will enable us to offer the same excellent service and deliver even greater savings to our customers. In the long term.” It is expected to close within the next two months.

Unions don’t see it the same way. A statementThe union’s president, Carolyn Senville, said the decision “makes no sense, not on a business level or an operational level.”

The timing certainly doesn’t make much sense if you consider Amazon’s recent investments in the region. Company Opening its first fulfillment center in Quebec in 2020, and then rapidly expanded with Five additional benefits which opened in 2021 The company operates a total of seven sites in Quebec, all of which were 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 the Amazon facilities in Laval, Quebec united with the Confederation des Syndicates Nations (Confederation of National Trade Unions) in response to growing concerns about worker safety and compensation. CorpWatch, a watchdog group, found that a Canadian facility had a disabling injury rate for Amazon warehouse workers. 19.42 100 workers per year, nearly seven times the average rate 2.9 100 workers per year across all industries. Only in 2022, 2022 was Amazon Canada order Awarding nearly $5 million in damages for more than 1,300 workplace injuries

The Laval facility was unionized Amazon is waiting to make its first offer on a dealwhich they expected to receive this month. The workers sought a starting wage of $26 an hour with additional workplace protections.

That offer will not come again. Instead, Amazon will farm out their work to contractors, who are routinely burdened Very long working days With delivery deadlines so tight they often don’t have time Stop using the toilet and suffer Significantly high rate of security breaches– All to save money.