Quebec labour tribunal orders Amazon to stop interfering with union affairs

Amazon Canada must cease its anti-union activities at its warehouse in the Lachine borough of Montreal and is ordered to pay the union a total of $30,000 in moral and punitive damages.

The Administrative Labour Tribunal ruled that the company did indeed obstruct and seek to interfere in the unionization campaign led by the CSN through a series of anti-union messages. However, it rejected the union’s claim that the company threatened and intimidated employees.

They also ordered Amazon to remove all anti-union messages disseminated in the company by various means.

Messages broadcast on a loop

For example, the company broadcast messages such as “A union card is a legal document,” “Unions cannot guarantee changes in the workplace,” “Unions charge you dues,” and “You do not have to provide your personal information.”

These messages were broadcast on a loop on screens reserved for human resources, placed on tables in the cafeteria, in the break room “and even on the bulletin boards in the washrooms,” the Administrative Labour Tribunal noted.

Workers with precarious status

In Judge Henrik Ellefsen’s decision, he emphasized that the employees “are mostly immigrant workers with precarious status. Often, they are more wary of the union, being very poorly informed about the laws governing labour relations in Quebec” and that “employees are more hesitant to join the union, concerned about the impact of this action on their employment and their status in their adopted country.”

For the magistrate, it is clear that “Amazon is not addressing people’s thoughts, it is trying to stir their emotions.” According to him, these messages take on a meaning that is not neutral “in the context where the employees to whom they are addressed may be concerned about the precariousness of their employment and their immigration or resident status.”

He points out that describing a union card as “a legal document,” for example, led an employee to testify, during the hearing, that he understands from these messages “that his signature could land him in court.”

As for stating that a union cannot guarantee changes in the workplace, but that it charges dues, Judge Ellefsen sees this as a desire to create the impression that a union is expensive but not useful.

Objective: to arouse concern

In short, he says, these messages “are mainly intended to arouse concern and aversion toward the union.”

“Amazon’s goal,” he concluded, “is to thwart the unionization process.”

Judge Ellefsen therefore ordered Amazon to pay the CSN $10,000 in moral damages and $20,000 in punitive damages. In return, since he considered that the employees had not been threatened or intimidated, he found no harm to them and rejected the request to pay $1,000 in exemplary damages to each of the employees.

The Lachine warehouse, named YUL2, employs more than 300 people, mainly in merchandise handling.

The DXT4 warehouse in Laval became the first unionized Amazon establishment in Canada last May. The company, which failed in an initial challenge to the procedure, is still contesting this accreditation.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews