Amazon said Wednesday it would close all warehouse and logistics operations in the Canadian province of Quebec, where the union is based at one of its facilities, and lay off 1,700 workers.
The closure marks a shift from Amazon's recent investments in the state. The company opened three delivery stations in 2021 and one last year. It also had a small fulfillment center in Quebec and two warehouses to sort packages.
Marc Wolflert, a Montreal-based warehouse industry consultant who has studied Amazon's logistics network for years, estimates that the investment will total about 2 million square feet of operating space.
Amazon said it is closing the seven facilities to “provide our customers with the same great service and even more savings over the long term,” according to a statement from company spokeswoman Barbara Agreit.
Amazon will continue to serve customers in Quebec by reverting to its pre-2020 operating model, where packages are prepared at facilities in neighboring provinces and delivered to Quebec by third-party delivery companies.
Amazon's first union in Canada is made up of about 230 warehouse workers in Laval, north of Montreal, after forming in May. However, the company challenged the unionization efforts in the local labor court. The group argued that the union's recognition should be revoked because workers showed their support by signing union cards rather than voting by secret ballot. The court ruled against Amazon in October, just before the peak holiday shopping season.
Amazon said litigation over the issue continues.
With Quebec's shutdown, “they made it very clear that we don't want this to escalate,” Wolfrad said, referring to the union's efforts. The company has more than 46,000 corporate and operational employees in Canada.
In a post on X, federal Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said he had expressed his disappointment to Amazon Canada's top executives.
“This is not the way business is done in Canada,” he says.
The National Union, the union representing the workers, said it was informed of the closure in an email from one of Amazon's lawyers early this morning. The federation's president, Caroline Senneville, said in a statement that the company had suppressed the union's movement since its inception three years ago through actions that included what she called “sham terminations.”
“For all workers in Quebec, this is a slap in the face,” she said.
Amazon denied the union's claims that the firings were unfair.
The Montreal metropolitan area has a population of approximately 4.5 million people and is larger than the Seattle metropolitan area. Exiting operations from major population centers is a move that Amazon has touted in recent years as a central driver of its business's success: bringing more products to customers for faster delivery. This is the opposite of placing it nearby. Amazon has repeatedly said this will reduce shipping costs and encourage customers to order more frequently.
Amazon hasn't given up direct operations in North America's large population centers in recent years, but more than a dozen years ago it routinely pushed back against states that tried to collect taxes on online sales. He was showing an attitude.
Walmart and other retailers have traditionally struggled to establish distribution centers in Quebec, where about two in five workers are unionized. That's the highest rate among Canadian provinces and about four times the rate in the United States, according to government data.
Quebec Premier François Legault said Amazon's move was a “personal decision by a private company.”
“I understand that it's difficult for the 1,700 families involved,” Legault told reporters at a press conference Wednesday, spending most of his remarks on the need for Quebecers to mobilize in response to President Trump's tariffs and buy locally produced products. He focused on sexuality. threat.
The state's labor minister, Jean Boulet, said workers affected by the warehouse closures would receive support from the government to find new jobs.
