Here are two separate pieces of information that you should absolutely read as independent clauses without any suggestion that they are related in any way: Last year, approximately 300 Amazon employees 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 subcontractor labor.
Amazon’s official position is that the decision to close its operations is entirely about cost cutting. By a statement made to CBCthe company examined its operations in Quebec and found that “returning to a third-party delivery model supported by small local businesses, similar to what we had until 2020, will allow us to offer the same excellent service and deliver even greater savings to our customers. long term.” The closures are expected to take place over the next two months.
The union does not see things the same way. In a statementunion president Caroline Senneville said the move “makes no sense, either commercially or operationally.”
The timing certainly doesn’t make much sense when considering Amazon’s recent investments in the space alone. The company opened its first distribution center in Quebec in 2020, then quickly developed with five additional installations which opened in 2021. The company operates seven locations in total in Quebec, all of which opened under the pretense that Amazon needed more workers to speed up deliveries in a growing market.
But then the union came along. Last spring, workers at one of Amazon’s facilities in Laval, Que. unionized with the Confederation of National Trade Unions in response to workers’ growing concerns about their safety and compensation. CorpWatch, a watchdog group, found that the rate of disabling injuries among Amazon warehouse workers at a Canadian facility was 7:42 p.m. per 100 workers per year, almost seven times higher than the average rate of 2.9 per 100 workers per year in all industries. In 2022 alone, Amazon Canada 2022 has been ordered to pay nearly $5 million in damages for more than 1,300 workplace accidents suffered in its facilities.
The Laval facilities union was while waiting for Amazon to make its first offer on a contractthat they expected to receive this month. Workers were demanding a starting wage of $26 an hour, as well as additional workplace protections.
This offer will never come. Instead, Amazon will outsource its work to subcontractors, who are regularly tasked with extremely long working days with delivery deadlines so tight that they often do not have time to stop going to the toilet and suffer from Significantly higher security breach rates– all to save a few dollars.