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A group of employees at Amazon’s YVR2 fulfillment centre in Delta, B.C., relaunched an internal campaign to decertify Unifor as their official union representative.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Hundreds of unionized Amazon AMZN-Q warehouse workers in Vancouver, on the verge of securing a historic first collective agreement this month, hit a roadblock after a separate group of employees began trying to decertify the union altogether.
Now, Amazon is asking the BC Labour Relations Board to pause bargaining until the decertification issue is resolved.
The Seattle tech behemoth and Unifor Local 114 in Delta, B.C., have been in hostile negotiations for more than a year over the terms of a first contract. If agreed upon, it would become the first-ever valid collective agreement in North America between Amazon and a group of employees – a milestone achievement for a workers’ movement that has been pushing to unionize warehouses since the pandemic.
But the process has been fraught, with the union accusing Amazon of putting forward “unrealistic” proposals that would effectively maintain employer control over wages and working conditions. This spring, the labour board appointed a mediator to help both sides resolve their issues. However, the mediator ultimately concluded that a first contract needed to be decided by an arbitrator, because Amazon’s approach to bargaining was unreasonable.
On Aug. 4, the labour board ordered binding arbitration to force a first contract.
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Days later, a group of employees at the 800-person warehouse relaunched an internal campaign to decertify Unifor as their official union representative, saying that Unifor reps fought every effort to allow employees to determine whether they even wanted union representation. The employees had previously filed a decertification application with the labour board on July 14, and held a board-administered vote on the issue a week later.
In a letter obtained by The Globe and Mail, dated Aug. 11 and circulated within Amazon’s Delta warehouse (also known as YVR2), an unknown number of employees are asking the labour board to make the results of the decertification vote public before a first collective agreement becomes official. They believe more than 50 per cent of employees do not want to be unionized.
“The most fundamental right a worker has in Canada is to decide whether the workplace is unionized or not,” the letter stated. “And that right is protected by a secret ballot government supervised vote.”
It is unclear who exactly these employees are and how many of them support the letter that has reignited the decertification issue at YVR2. The letter is signed by “Representative for Certain Employees.”
In theory, the decertification issue should have no bearing on the labour board’s decision to involve an arbitrator in determining a first collective agreement.
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But in a statement to The Globe, Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson said the company was appealing the board’s decision to order binding arbitration for a first contract. He asserted that the board should, in fact, pause arbitration until the decertification issue is resolved.
Unifor, for its part, is alleging that Amazon is employing a delay tactic to “union-bust” and ultimately deter a first collective agreement from coming to fruition.
Gavin McGarrigle, western regional director of Unifor, said in an interview that the union believes Amazon is involved in sowing discord amongst employees about union representation.
Specifically, Mr. McGarrigle said that warehouse employees witnessed Amazon managers distributing leaflets over the past few months about decertification. Unifor filed an unfair labour practice complaint with the board on this issue on Aug. 7, a copy of which was viewed by The Globe.
Amazon did not respond specifically to this allegation.
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Amazon has a widely documented history of union-busting, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a labour historian at Cornell University. She said the company has used various legal challenges and anti-union messaging to thwart worker attempts to organize and negotiate collective agreements.
“Amazon’s refusal to abide by labour board decisions is nothing new. There’s a reason why the first group of Amazon workers that unionized at the Staten Island warehouse still do not have a collective agreement,” she noted.
In April, 2022, Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, N.Y., became the first group of Amazon workers in North America to form a union, supported by a decision from the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB.
But since then, Amazon has fought the NLRB decision at every juncture, arguing in 2024 that the board itself is an unconstitutional organization that impedes executive power of the U.S. President’s office.
In April this year, the NLRB ruled that Amazon illegally refused to recognize the formation of the union at the Staten Island warehouse. The board ordered Amazon to begin negotiations with Teamsters, the union representing those workers. Amazon has since appealed that decision, too.
Since Unifor initiated its organizing drive at the Delta warehouse more than three years ago, the union has filed six unfair labour practices with the B.C. labour board. The core theme of those complaints is that Amazon is trying to prevent, through any means, its warehouse workers from legally having union representation and ultimately, better workplace conditions.
“We’re going through the legal process of many unfair labour practices, and many appeals. But sooner or later, the board will appoint an arbitrator who will determine the terms of the collective agreement,” Mr. McGarrigle said. “It might happen soon, it might happen in a few months, but we are confident it will happen.”