Amazon Canada President Shirks Responsibility for Closures

Jasmin Begagic is president of ACFS, Amazon Canada Fulfillment Services, which encompasses all of Amazon's parcel delivery services in the country. However, Begagic claims to be merely an executor who signs where he is told to sign, or at least that is what he tried to convince the Administrative Labour Tribunal to believe during his questioning on September 26.

Begagic was the first witness called to testify in the challenge to the closure of seven Amazon warehouses in Quebec, which occurred shortly after one of them unionized. On Friday morning, he appeared to be attempting to absolve himself in advance of any responsibility for these closures. “That's the scope of my presidency, just signing the documents,” he told the lawyer representing the Centrale des syndicats nationaux (CSN). 

When questioned further, the ACFS president assured the audience, and the visibly stunned judge, that he “do[es]n't look much” at the documents he is asked to sign by email. He added that his job was to apply “Amazon's mechanisms,” without being able to indicate which legal entity provides him with these “mechanisms” or which contracts require his authorization before being signed. 

Mr. Begagic's hiring for this position appears to have been just as confusing. He claims that he was given the position of president by “someone from the legal department” without being able to say which company the legal department belongs to or give the name of the person who hired him. 

In short, Amazon's president in Canada was hired by “someone” to sign documents that he quickly reviews to ensure that they comply with unknown standards.

Delaying proceedings

Before Begagic's questioning began, nearly an hour of the hearing was devoted to “administrative matters,” i.e., paperwork considerations. Since Amazon claims that it closed its warehouses for economic reasons, not anti-union reasons, the CSN wanted to have an economic assessment carried out. However, it turns out that the data needed to conduct such a study was not sent by the American monopoly's legal team.

Amazon's lawyer, Frédéric Massé, argued that he was actually doing the CSN team a favor by agreeing to provide several pieces of information that, in his opinion, could be considered trade secrets. He justified his failure to disclose the documents by arguing that Amazon's administration did not really have a comprehensible list of expenses. 

Instead, the CSN legal team received an internal Amazon document called “DT11HHH” which claims that Amazon would eventually save $16 million per year by closing its warehouses, without providing detailed data to prove it. Judge Irène Zaïkoff appeared exasperated, reminding the lawyer that such documents had been requested on March 31.

According to Félix Trudeau, president of the Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses d’Amazon Laval (STTAL), Amazon’s team is deliberately creating delays in the lawsuit by failing to send documents. For him, this resembles the methods used by the same legal team during negotiations with the union, namely to prolong the case unnecessarily.

Mr. Massé himself argued during the hearing that the case could last several months, or even several years. This would not be the first time that Amazon has bought time at the Administrative Labour Tribunal.