On the morning of April 30, activists blocked access to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centre in Varennes, preventing dozens of employees from entering. Members of the Laval Amazon Workers' Union (STTAL-CSN) and the labour group Workers' Alliance protested the immense quantity of public money provided to AWS through subsidies and government contracts.
The operation was part of a week of action undertaken by the “Here We Boycott Amazon” campaign endorsed by Workers' Alliance and the STTAL. Amazon closed its Quebec warehouses and fired 4,700 employees earlier this year. This after the STTAL was on the verge of forcing the American multinational into arbitration for a first collective agreement.
Among the boycott campaign's demands is the repayment of hundreds of millions of dollars Amazon has received from the Canadian and Quebec governments in the form of discounted electricity and subsidies for infrastructure construction.
Campaign spokesperson André-Philippe Doré says that the public subsidies given to Amazon are particularly egregious after the company brazenly flouted Quebec labour law to crush the union. “They infringe Quebec laws, and in exchange, we give them treats,” he remarked to The North Star.
Besides public subsidies, Amazon Web Services also makes ample money from government contracts. Between 2020 and 2024, AWS received more than $300 million in contracts from the federal government and nearly $90 million from the province.
“It's worrying that an all-powerful multinational has the last word on where our data is and what's done with it. We know that Amazon doesn't give a damn about respecting our privacy, but we're giving the data of Quebec and Canada directly to this Machiavellian private company,” says Doré.
AWS has drawn intense criticism from human rights groups for its collaboration with entities such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Canadian Armed Forces, and the Israeli military. In 2021, AWS and Google signed a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government for services known as “Project Nimbus.”
While the details of Project Nimbus are shrouded in mystery, Israeli officials have indicated that AWS technology is playing a significant role in its war against Palestine. “Phenomenal things are happening in battle because of the Nimbus public cloud, things that are impactful for victory,” said Gaby Portnoy, head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, last February, “and I will not share details.”
The “Here We Boycott Amazon” campaign will continue its week of action up to Saturday. “We want to disrupt. We want to get several different messages across,” says Doré. “We'll be aiming at other targets, but we're trying to send a strong message to the government in particular. It doesn't make sense how it's handling the situation and how it's not acting in a crisis like this.”
Activists from Workers' Alliance and the boycott campaign will march with STTAL members and other fired Amazon workers at an International Workers' Day event on May 1.