ArticleAmazon said it would close its seven warehouses in Quebec and lay off 1,700 workers in the Canadian province, less than a year after employees at one of the facilities unionized and were inching toward a collective bargaining agreement.
Amazon said in an email that the decision was unrelated to recent efforts to unionize and was “about offering the best service we can to customers in a way that’s efficient and cost effective.”
Barbara Agrait, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a separate emailed statement that the decision was made after a review of operations. Amazon will create a delivery model based on third-party local small businesses, Agrait said. “This decision wasn’t made lightly,” she said, adding that Amazon will offer up to 14 weeks’ pay to affected employees.
In May, Quebec officials approved the unionization of the 300 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Laval, just north of Montreal, according to the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux, the union representing the employees. They said that it was the first union at an Amazon warehouse in Canada, and that it would protect workers originally from Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Good. An economically weakened Kay-beck is good for Canada!