Canadian Amazon Warehouse First To Unionize In North America

The struggle to unionize Amazon is shifting to Canada, where workers in Alberta could soon be the first to unionize an Amazon warehouse in North America.

Photo Insert: The Amazon YEG1 facility in Alberta, Canada

Workers at the “YEG1” facility in Nisku, Alberta, just outside Edmonton, filed for a union election on Monday, September 13. The election could be held in mere weeks, once the Alberta Labor Relations Board approves the application.

Workers at the relatively new facility in Nisku, which employs between 600 to 800 Amazon “associates,” have described rampant favoritism and discrimination against marginalized workers of color and immigrants.

Job security, the pace of work, and wages are also among Nisku workers’ top concerns, according to Christopher Monette, director of public affairs at Teamsters Canada, Candice Bernd reported for Truthout on Sept. 19, 2021. As the warehouse filed for a union election Monday, Amazon Canada announced it would hire 15,000 new warehouse workers and raise hourly wages from $16 to between $17 to $21.65 Canadian dollars per hour.

Dave Bauer, who is Amazon Canada Operations head of communications, touted the wage increase, telling Truthout in a statement that full-time employees also receive comprehensive benefits.

“As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Every day we empower people to find ways to improve their jobs, and when they do that we want to make those changes — quickly,” Bauer said. “That type of continuous improvement is harder to do quickly and nimbly with unions in the middle.”

“A lot of workers were telling us stories about how they have been given less favorable job assignments or postings within the warehouse. For example, having to lift heavier boxes without access to the right equipment, things like that,” Monette tells Truthout.

“They feel it’s because they didn’t have the correct relationship with their manager or because of their race or ethnic background.” Monette says workers are being asked to retrieve items every 9 to 12 seconds, and that their jobs and wages are threatened when they can’t keep up.

“That’s taking a toll on workers’ bodies,” he says. “We’re seeing young, fit workers complaining about lower-back pain, knee pain, things that they shouldn’t be having as they’re trying to earn a living at Amazon.”

While many Amazon warehouse workers in Europe have unionized, the company has waged severe union-busting campaigns to fend off union drives across North America.

The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found the company violated US labor law in beating back its first North American union election at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, earlier this year, and has recommended Bessemer workers hold a new election to determine whether to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).

Now, one of the most powerful unions in North America, the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, are stepping up to the plate, hoping that Canada’s union-friendly labor laws will give its local, Teamsters 362, an edge in its union drive at Nisku, and build momentum at warehouses across the country — and the continent.

The 1.4 million-member Teamsters passed a resolution in June to lead an ambitious, international initiative to unionize Amazon. The union is taking a different approach than the RWDSU, promising to pour significant financial resources into a unified unionizing effort across its more than 500 locals in the US and Canada, rather than organizing warehouse by warehouse.

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