The company is likely to file an appeal after Quebec’s labor panel decided to let the union become recognized.
The first union at one of Amazon’s warehouses in Canada was established by a group of employees working for the corporation in the province of Quebec. Workers at the DXT4 warehouse in Laval, which is a suburb of Montreal, were awarded union accreditation on Friday following a decision made by the provincial labor tribunal. Following the signing of union cards, it was established that the majority of workers had chosen to form a union.
The Laval Amazon Workers Union is a group of approximately 200 workers that are organizing themselves under the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), which is a political organization that represents approximately 330,000 people in Canada across a wide range of industries. In the next days, there will be a general assembly that will be held in order to make decisions regarding a constitution, bylaws, and representatives. After that, there will be a discussion among the members of the union in order to reach a consensus on a list of requests.
Specifically, the union asserts that Amazon is legally obligated to present itself at the negotiation table in order to work out a contract. On the other hand, it anticipates that Amazon will file an appeal against the verdict made by the labor tribunal after allegedly seeking to halt the unionization activities.
Caroline Senneville, the president of the CSN, issued a statement in which she said, “First and foremost, this is a great victory for the men and women from Latin America, Chad, the Maghreb, and Asia who were not afraid to stand up for their rights.” “Over the course of the past few months, Amazon has made every effort to thwart our unionization campaign by inundating the workplace with messages that are intended to fear and intimidate employees. The employees of DXT4 have taught all of us a valuable lesson in bravery. Naturally, we are hoping that it will become more widespread.
On May 6, Amazon wrote a letter to the labor tribunal claiming that the accreditation would not “respect the interests of its employees.” The document was sent to the tribunal. In addition, the company asserted that certain sections of the Quebec labor code are in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that certain workers signed union cards after being mislead about certain aspects of the code.
“We believe that all people should have the right to inform themselves and to vote according to their situation and convictions at the time,” A spokesperson for Amazon named Barbara M. Agrait stated to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). “If a simple majority of people at an employer have joined a union at any point, then there’s no vote and representation is automatic for all employees — including maybe dozens or hundreds of employees who didn’t even know it was being considered.”
It has been alleged for a long time that Amazon is aiming to undermine unionization attempts at warehouses located in the United States and Europe. Workers in a warehouse located on Staten Island, New York, were the first employees of the company to organize into a union in the year 2022. The Amazon Labor Union, on the other hand, does not yet have a contract with Amazon, and there are rumors that indicate it is running low on cash in advance of an election for corporate leadership.