Amazon shuts down all Quebec warehouses

Amazon Canada's lawyers announced this morning in an e-mail to the union at the DXT4 warehouse in Laval that they would be permanently ceasing operations in the province of Quebec. Over 1,800 workers in Quebec will be laid off “within the next two months”. Several hundred delivery personnel, hired by subcontractors but linked to specific warehouses, will also lose their jobs.

The multinational, with its controversial history of anti-union measures, justifies its drastic decision by asserting that “it is possible to ensure product delivery […] more efficiently and at a lower cost by reverting to a model using third parties”.

Warehouse workers were also informed of the closure this morning during their shift. Wesley Marceau, vice-president of the union at DXT4, tells The North Star: “They announced to everyone during our morning meeting that they were going to close all the warehouses, saying that they are always looking for ways to better serve their employees.”

Marceau ironizes, “I think that according to them, serving their employees better means closing all the warehouses and firing everyone." He adds, “I've talked to a lot of my colleagues, none of whom expected this. There's a lot of distress, a lot of concern, but we're going to be there for them, and we're going to fight.”

An anti-union measure

Amazon denies that the closure of the seven sites in the province is linked to the very first unionization of one of the monopoly's warehouses last year. On the other hand, with the closure announcement coming on the very morning of a negotiating session with the union, Wesley Marceau doesn't see it as a coincidence: “I think they're closing to stop the union; we were approaching arbitration at negotiations, we had a very strong health and safety committee, and we were trying to change Amazon's structure to benefit workers.”

“They're trying to send a message to all their workers that they can close anytime and they don't care about our jobs, it's really just about their money.”