A Step Backwards
Feb 5, 2025 Amazon’s Efforts to Undermine Unions is an Attack on Canadian Sovereignty
Last May, The Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), a trade union organization with nearly 2,000 member unions, who together represent 300,000 working women and men within Quebec, organized about 230 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Laval. It was the first successful unionization of an Amazon location in Canada. In Quebec, and indeed throughout Canada, when a company becomes unionized it has legal obligations to recognize the legitimacy of the union and to act in good faith by entering into negotiations with the union to establish a collective agreement for that new bargaining unit.
Instead Amazon has retaliated by announcing that it would close all seven of its facilities in Quebec and will be laying off its 1700 permanent employees in the province. Looking back, in September 2004, United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) Canada Local 503 was certified to represent Wal-Mart employees in Jonquière, QC. On February 9, 2005, after negotiations for a first contract stalled, the Quebec Minister of Labour referred the dispute to arbitration. That same day, Wal-Mart announced it had decided to close the store. On April 29, 2005, the store was shuttered and 190 employees were terminated. In October 2008, Walmart shut another unionized Quebec store in Gatineau, just days after a first collective agreement was reached through arbitration. Walmart claimed the contract also made that store unworkable.
The Supreme Court of Canada was asked to rule on the matter of the Walmart Jonquière closing. The Court found that Walmart had not shown the closure to have been made in the ordinary course of the company’s business. It was determined that the change was not consistent with the employer’s past management practices or with those of a reasonable employer in the same circumstances. Further the Court held that it was reasonable to find that a reasonable employer would not close an establishment like the Jonquiere Wal-Mart, which evidently was performing very well, meeting its objectives to such an extent that bonuses were being promised.
In Canada under our Constitution collective bargaining is considered to be a basic human right. Employers are statutorily barred under provincial and federal laws from altering working conditions while a collective agreement is being negotiated. The purpose for the prohibition is to ensure that the employer does not attempt to place any undue pressure or influence on its employees to accept less-favourable terms of employment in a collective agreement. Further, it is generally accepted that closing down a facility that has become unionized is an unfair labour practice usually guided by an anti-union motive. We usually see actions such as the ones taken by Walmart in the past and more recently by Amazon as attempts to interfere with the rights of employee to join unions and the rights of those unions to provide representation.
In our practice we operate under the principle that a union-free organization ought to manage in ways that promote the direct relationship with employees and therefore acts as a deterrent and provides no reason for those employees to want to join a union. However, we adamantly push back on organizations who use this type of suppression tactic to deny employees a right they have.
Amazon has deliberately taken a drastic action in order to put a chill in (suppress) any future motives employees throughout Quebec and across Canada may have to join unions. The step is not only provocative but is another example of an American organization imposing its views on Canadians in an attack on Quebec’s and Canada’s sovereignty.
Amazon became a $2 trillion company last year, with facilities and thousands of employees across Canada. It has long been a target for unions that say the company's emphasis on ever-faster speed and efficiency can lead to injuries and its unwillingness to pay higher wages despite sizable profits. Its claim in making the decision to close all of its Quebec facilities is that it can lower its operating costs by using third party service providers. This seems disingenuous as they had in the past already assessed this and had moved from third party providers to in-house staff. These facts point to the decision being based on its anti-union animus view. The actions Amazon has taken are disrespectful towards Canada and our laws and should alarm all of us, regardless of our disposition towards labour organizations.
Unions are never successful in organizing good employers who recognize the value of their employees. Rather unions are successful in organizing workers who are not treated in fair and equitable ways and who need more clout and a collective voice to change the working conditions they are being forced to accept. In this way labour unions and other labour organizations play a vital role in the maintenance and promotion of a vital democracy.
Our laws are designed to protect the rights of workers and of unions in order to shore up the strength of our democracy. However, in the United States unions are seen as organizations that promote the wrong type of political thought and somehow undermine democracy. This is nonsense. Moreover, it is one of many factors that suggest while Canada is a thriving fully democratic country, the U.S.A. remains a flawed democracy precisely because it allows companies to deny their workers fundamental human rights which include the right to join and participate in a union.
The dramatic differences in union density rates between Canada and the U.S. (35% versus 14% respectively) are one example of the significant differences in our respective cultures. Trade unionism is an important part of our history and unions are important players in our cultural makeup.
There are fair and open ways for an employer to act to convince its employees that they do not need a union. However, we also have established rules to define what constitutes unfair practices. Employers who act in ways to suggest the rules do not apply to them or who demonstrate a disrespect for our laws and the Canadian culture need to be held accountable.
With the beginning of the unnecessary trade wars sparked by the stupidity of the current U.S. administration it is clear that American imperialism is alive and well and in addition to tariffs is aimed at annexing Canada. It is important in our fight back that we support the right of unions to exist and to legally represent the workers who have found it desirable to have a voice against employers who would deny them safe and comfortable working conditions and a living wage in the pursuit of excess profits.
Amazon has established a great service in Canada. Many consumers appreciate the convenience of on-line shopping and the speed and efficiency Amazon provides in fulfilling orders. However, during these times of great economic stress Canadians need to collectively think about what things we may have to do without, in order to protect our sovereignty and our right to be different than Americans.
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