Amazon warehouse workers in Quebec are calling on the government to end their relationship with the e-commerce giant and put in place laws to protect workers against the violation of labour rights through closures.
Amazon announced Wednesday it would close all warehouses in Quebec, which eliminates more than 1,900 permanent and temporary jobs. Labour leaders and workers were quick to voice their outrage. The only unionized Amazon warehouse in Canada is located in Quebec.
READ MORE: Union says Amazon closures in Quebec are an attack on unionization
Workers held an assembly on Sunday night at the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC) in Montreal. Mostafa Henaway, an organizer with the IWC, shared the main demands of workers in a Facebook post. Workers want an end to the relationship between Amazon and the government and a reversal of the corporation’s decision. If Amazon does not change its closure plans, workers are demanding one year of compensation, including all benefits. The current severance offer from Amazon is 14 weeks of pay.
Federal Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Jean-Yves Duclos, said on Friday that Amazon has agreed to speak with government officials about the closures. In recent years, Amazon’s web services and delivery and logistics units have sought partnerships with Canadian businesses and the government. In a letter to Amazon, Duclos said the recent decision is inconsistent with Amazon’s goal of being a strategic partner in the country’s industrial economy.
“We are a good partner with that company and many others in Canada, but we also expect those partners to work appropriately with workers,” Duclos told reporters on Friday. “It is not acceptable to punish workers because they become unionized. In Canada, the right to become unionized is a right that is fundamental.”
The announcement of the closures came as a shock to many. Felix Trudeau, an Amazon worker and union local president, said a bargaining session was scheduled for the very same day the announcement was made.
While Duclos’ reaction shows his goals may align with one of the demands from Amazon workers, Henaway and Felix Trudeau said justice for workers can only come from the organizing of workers themselves.
“The labour movement needs the courage to stand up to those tactics, adapt to this situation and take stock of how blatantly these multinationals are disrespecting the law and disrespecting their workers,” Trudeau said in an interview with rabble.ca.
Henaway said the IWC has been working closely with Amazon workers who have not yet had a chance to unionize. He said many of these workers are worried about how they will find another job but many are not surprised. This anti-worker attitude has been building for years, Henaway said.
“Our governments are really endorsing this, we subsidize Amazon,” he said. “They haven’t really held Amazon to account prior to this in terms of the way they treated workers and the work conditions. When we demanded an inquiry, there was very little support.”
Trudeau said recent news may be demoralizing for workers, but it is not a new phenomenon for companies to come up with various anti-union tricks.
“For the working class, the answer to those obstacles remains organization and solidarity,” he said. “It’s not a matter of reinventing the wheel. It’s just a matter of adapting, unions and the labor movement to the current conditions.”
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Nick Seebruch, editor
