Another AWS contract for Quebec Gov., “it’s revolting,” says laid-off Amazon worker

A year after Amazon’s historic firing of thousands of Quebec workers, the provincial CAQ government’s promises to reassess its relationship with the giant have already been set aside. Its Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests has just awarded the company an $18 million data storage contract.

The North Star sat down with Félix Trudeau, president of the first Amazon union in Canada (STTAL–CSN), whose warehouse was closed following unionization:

“My interpretation of what the provincial and federal governments said last year is that it was just PR. […] It’s revolting. The CAQ demonstrates over and over again, with every new twist in this story, that they are the party of multinationals.”

According to the government’s Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs, Gilles Bélanger, more than 90% of Quebecers’ sensitive data is hosted by major American cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

Yet, the government tabled a digital sovereignty policy in February. It has been criticized for containing no enforcement or binding mechanisms. It also contains no criteria for compliance with labour and unionization laws, despite Amazon’s conduct.

This is on top of the recently passed American CLOUD Act, which could allow the U.S. government to seize data stored with American companies.

For Félix Trudeau, the provincial and federal governments never wanted to tackle the heart of the issue: the impunity Amazon and other multinationals enjoy to repress workers’ right to organize and lay off workers without consequence.

“It was always centered on the issue of the trade war with the United States. It was very rare for the federal or provincial governments to directly address the interests of workers or the interests of the working class.”

Without pointing in any particular direction, the union leader stressed the importance of solidarity for the future. He believes it may be too late for a mass popular movement that could save his former job, and is awaiting the outcome of the union’s case before the labour tribunal.

But not all is lost for the future, as other warehouses could still unionize in Canada, and Amazon still exists in Quebec through delivery partner Intelcom. Trudeau says he remains convinced of the power of the working class acting together and in mass to claim its rights. The task now is simply to learn from what happened, and draw inspiration from the resistance (unprecedented in the 21st century in Québec) that warehouse workers put up against the multinational.