Amazon to close all warehouses in Quebec, eliminating 1,900 jobs
Amazon Canada says it will close all seven of its Quebec warehouses and lay off staff over the next two months.
The e-commerce giant positioned the move scuttling 1,700 permanent jobs and 250 temporary ones as a way to provide “even more savings to our customers over the long run” and dismissed concerns that it was linked to a recent unionization push in the province.
“This is about offering the best service we can to customers in a way that’s efficient and cost effective,” Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait said in email on Wednesday, when asked to comment on whether the closures were an attempt at union busting.
The closure of the Quebec facilities will mean Amazon will revert to a business model it used in the province up until 2020, which employed local, third-party companies for package deliveries.
About 240 Amazon workers at the company’s DXT4 warehouse in Laval, Que., a Montreal suburb, managed to unionize in May, becoming the first of the tech company’s Canadian warehouses to unionize.
The process was hard fought with Amazon challenging the workers’ accreditation with the Confederation of National Trade Unions, which accused the company of “flooding the workplace with scaremongering messages.”
Amazon has previously responded to accusations that it’s anti-union by saying it doesn’t think unions are the best option for its employees but they have the right to join a union.
The company lost its challenge at the province’s labour tribunal in October.
Caroline Senneville, president of the union involved with the organizing in Laval, said she has “no doubt” that Wednesday’s closures, which she called “a slap in the face for all Quebec workers,” are part of an anti-union campaign.
“As a worker in Quebec or in Canada,
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