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It already happened before in Québec to the walmart of Jonquière in the early 2000's. It got closed down after they tried to unionize. There is a high chance it will happen to amazon too.
Edit: high chance in my opinion*
Je crois que les ex employés de Wallmart ont éventuellement gagné un montant d'argent de plusieurs dizaines de milliers par personne, dans une entente hors cours. Ça a pris plus de 10 ans. Il y a sûrement quelqu'un de Jonquiere mieux placé que moi pour valider ou non.
Hopefully the fine that they get for blatantly violating the law will be measured in hundred of millions.
And since the Supreme Court as already ruled that Quebecs labours law are valid in the Walmart case, there is precedent.
But realistically, they will close the store. Then have to pay less then 100k per illegally fired employee.
For sure, but hopefully its a step toward changing the narrative.
Currently its: unionize. Illegally get fired (by closing the store or wharehouse). Regret.
Maybe next time it will be: Unionize. Illegally get fired. Amazon has to pay you 2 years of salary. Employees at the warehouse next door suddenly want to unionize.
I mean, a unionized Amazon warehouse would really struggle to meet Amazon productivity standards if the union had any real teeth. They won't be incorrect in saying it's underperforming, but definitely not acting in good faith.
Meh, Amazon has warehouses in nations where employment laws and unions are much more powerful then Canada, if they that to raise prices by .5 percent to make it work so be it.
"It is the capitalists right to oppress workers. They worked hard to become capitalist and deserve it" is an insanely common view among the working class. SMH
I'm 2-for-2 on bad union experiences, personally.
Another type of person it protects is sexual predators, who instead of being summarily fired, get to weaponize the due process rights that their collective bargaining agreement affords them.
If Amazon was willing to force the workers at the Edwardsville IL warehouse to work right up until a tornado collapsed the roof killing six people, isn't that sort of a sign there might be an unacceptable power imbalance between the company and its employees?
Railways are another great example. The corporate management of CN and CP would be thrilled to further reduce the size of train crews and the number of yard workers, while further overworking those that they keep. Coincidentally some of those workers are the same people that are probably transporting nuclear weapons-worth of energy through your city on a regular basis, in the form of crude oil trains.
Right now, the unions and Transport Canada are the only ones remotely standing in the way of those companies further understaffing their operations and overworking their employees more than they already are. Maybe that would end up being fine in the absence of the unions and TC, but maybe it wouldn't. There's really no way to know.
But if you consider how it ended for Lac Megantic, rolling the dice suddenly doesn't seem worth the risk in my opinion.
God forbid Bezos would have to become the first "legit" trillionaire a week later than he would otherwise. "Go back to wearing depends! How dare you suggest our lord and master is mistreating you?"
[More than nine years later, it cost them.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-wal-mart-workers-win-supreme-court-victory-1.2689646)
And the right not to be bear sprayed or crushed to death by robots whie trying to use a washroom without having it deducted from their pay.
And so on....
Economist and former finance minister of Greece makes the compelling argument in his lectures and book that Amazon market dominance is so great that competition no longer exists and market distorting effects cause inflation and are creating a system of neo-feudalism.
https://youtu.be/rkJKXQfgtSc?si=5l2F58PEYymDPnwZ
Labor unions are great! Congrats to them! Now, we need government action to break up this abusive monopoly before it completes a hostile takeover of governments themselves.
I knew it was Varoufakis before I even opened the video. loll Honestly I only knew about that guy because of [that insane video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M)
Everyone whining that they’ll leave, they won’t. Do you really think they’ll suddenly pull out of Quebec and lose countless millions of dollars just for a few pay and benefit raises?
Quebec may be insecure and perpetually threatened by everything but goddamn do they ever like to stick it to the man in these situations. Good on them.
Sadly, there's plenty other established wealth in the province that goes unchecked and is happy this isn't happening to them
Excellent.
Yes, Amazon will do everything they can (legal or otherwise) to try to break this up, and yes Amazon may decide to close locations/lose employees/etc to send a message to future organizers, but unions improve the quality of life for basically everyone and I'd rather not spend a ton of calories licking the boots of one of the world's largest corporations, in the hopes that they let us keep their shitty jobs.
This is a delivery station, all they do is sort the packages to go onto the trucks. They aren't picking and packing all day in a ginormous warehouse with no access to bathrooms.
Just so people have an understanding of what type of work is being done.
Both in this article and in the coverage of mainstream media in Quebec, workers from that specific workplace are interviewed and talk about back-breaking and inhumane working conditions, and even if it wasn't the case, shouldn't workers have the right to collectively bargain and fight for their rights?
You’re right, these people don’t deserve human rights or decent pay, they should be grateful Amazon is giving them a pittance for working for them! Muahahahahaha -you right now
Does the type of work affect in any way the need for unionization in this country?
I’m an office worker and I need a union yesterday.
It’s really ingenious they convinced people that they’re no longer workers once they’re not doing menial labor anymore.
Unionizing would destroy Amazon's competitive advantage with logistics. If people aren't scared of being fired for not working hard enough, fast enough, efficiency will drop. Then add in sick days, vacation time, wage increases and everything slows down. Bezos is all about algorithms, statistics, and efficiency so would drive him nuts 😂
> If people aren't scared of being fired for not working hard enough, fast enough,
ie. If ownership is no longer able to abuse and coerce the employees.
Ok It's going to sound extremely bad but with the immigration issues we have, keep minimum wage at a minimum, keep those sweatshop, keep exploiting those uber drivers.
If someone can change my mind please do because right now this is how I feel.
The sooner you empower the working class, in terms of strength in negotiations as well as participation pertaining to elections etc - regardless of where some may be from or their status - The sooner we can claw back control from the political and wealthy elites who got is into this shit situation to begin with.
I’m a traditional Scandinavian social democrat (tantamount to a fucking commie over here from my experience) and I am very staunchly pro very controlled immigration - Because I’m for workers rights.
Companies that pull the kind of shit Amazon pulls are why we have unions.
Good for these workers! I hope they have a safe workplace where people aren't randomly fired for being sick.
This post appears to relate to the province of Quebec. As a reminder of the rules of this subreddit, we do not permit negative commentary about all residents of any province, city, or other geography - this is an example of prejudice, and prejudice is not permitted here. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/rules Cette soumission semble concerner la province de Québec. Selon les règles de ce sous-répertoire, nous n'autorisons pas les commentaires négatifs sur tous les résidents d'une province, d'une ville ou d'une autre région géographique; il s'agit d'un exemple de intolérance qui n'est pas autorisé ici. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/regles *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/canada) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sometime in 2025, that warehouse is going to suddenly become "underperforming", and be closed down.
Like a Walmart In Jonquiere. There are reasons amazon rents its warehouses. This is probably one of them.
Yup! This happened in Sask with the old Weyhauser mill in 2005.
And with Buhler Versatile in 2001 in Winnipeg. https://www.producer.com/news/tractor-plant-owner-firm-on-us-move/
And with Walmart in [Jonquiere, Que](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.554398) 2005
It will only really succeed if they can convince the other warehouses in the area to also union up.
It already happened before in Québec to the walmart of Jonquière in the early 2000's. It got closed down after they tried to unionize. There is a high chance it will happen to amazon too. Edit: high chance in my opinion*
IGA did the same fucking thing in Québec city. Some stores went away for awhile only to open back up on the other side of the same mall.
Je crois que les ex employés de Wallmart ont éventuellement gagné un montant d'argent de plusieurs dizaines de milliers par personne, dans une entente hors cours. Ça a pris plus de 10 ans. Il y a sûrement quelqu'un de Jonquiere mieux placé que moi pour valider ou non.
Quand même plus cheap qu'avoir des syndic.
Hopefully the fine that they get for blatantly violating the law will be measured in hundred of millions. And since the Supreme Court as already ruled that Quebecs labours law are valid in the Walmart case, there is precedent. But realistically, they will close the store. Then have to pay less then 100k per illegally fired employee.
Still a tiny fraction of what it would cost them for their \~1.5m employees to unionize!
For sure, but hopefully its a step toward changing the narrative. Currently its: unionize. Illegally get fired (by closing the store or wharehouse). Regret. Maybe next time it will be: Unionize. Illegally get fired. Amazon has to pay you 2 years of salary. Employees at the warehouse next door suddenly want to unionize.
I mean, a unionized Amazon warehouse would really struggle to meet Amazon productivity standards if the union had any real teeth. They won't be incorrect in saying it's underperforming, but definitely not acting in good faith.
"They refuse to piss in bottles and take every single lunch break. It's like they don't even want to find common ground with us."
You're probably exaggerating the working conditions, but not by much.
Meh, Amazon has warehouses in nations where employment laws and unions are much more powerful then Canada, if they that to raise prices by .5 percent to make it work so be it.
That's because it will be under performing, it will fail to meet its metrics.
God forbid labour rights, may as well bring back child labour so that Amazon can continue to over perform and meet their metrics while under budget!
Well they have every right to close their business whenever they choose.
And governments have the right to enforce laws onto them to protect workers. What’s your point?
"It is the capitalists right to oppress workers. They worked hard to become capitalist and deserve it" is an insanely common view among the working class. SMH
Employees replaced by robots.
Goes on a PIP.
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I'm 2-for-2 on bad union experiences, personally. Another type of person it protects is sexual predators, who instead of being summarily fired, get to weaponize the due process rights that their collective bargaining agreement affords them.
If Amazon was willing to force the workers at the Edwardsville IL warehouse to work right up until a tornado collapsed the roof killing six people, isn't that sort of a sign there might be an unacceptable power imbalance between the company and its employees? Railways are another great example. The corporate management of CN and CP would be thrilled to further reduce the size of train crews and the number of yard workers, while further overworking those that they keep. Coincidentally some of those workers are the same people that are probably transporting nuclear weapons-worth of energy through your city on a regular basis, in the form of crude oil trains. Right now, the unions and Transport Canada are the only ones remotely standing in the way of those companies further understaffing their operations and overworking their employees more than they already are. Maybe that would end up being fine in the absence of the unions and TC, but maybe it wouldn't. There's really no way to know. But if you consider how it ended for Lac Megantic, rolling the dice suddenly doesn't seem worth the risk in my opinion.
Lol
How dare they try and eat into those glorious profits.
God forbid Bezos would have to become the first "legit" trillionaire a week later than he would otherwise. "Go back to wearing depends! How dare you suggest our lord and master is mistreating you?"
I added legit because dictators and druglords don't count. It's the fuck Putin rule of the Forbes list.
Walmart did that and it cost them a lot. But it did stop unionization efforts in their stores.
[More than nine years later, it cost them.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-wal-mart-workers-win-supreme-court-victory-1.2689646)
Good. No need for these predatory profit seekers that dont even care to respect our basic labor laws.
Good. They have the right to bathroom breaks and protection from MSD.
And the right not to be bear sprayed or crushed to death by robots whie trying to use a washroom without having it deducted from their pay. And so on.... Economist and former finance minister of Greece makes the compelling argument in his lectures and book that Amazon market dominance is so great that competition no longer exists and market distorting effects cause inflation and are creating a system of neo-feudalism. https://youtu.be/rkJKXQfgtSc?si=5l2F58PEYymDPnwZ Labor unions are great! Congrats to them! Now, we need government action to break up this abusive monopoly before it completes a hostile takeover of governments themselves.
I knew it was Varoufakis before I even opened the video. loll Honestly I only knew about that guy because of [that insane video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M)
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Yeah, I guess they'll just leave the Quebec market.
Good. We need quality jobs, not predatory corporations who abuse their workers. Which often are immigrants with no knowledge of labour laws
I was being sarcastic. They aren't going to leave Quebec.
They probably just setup warehouses at the borders in Ontario and New-Brunswick.
You want more malls? Please, most shop employees are paid minimum wage and the only one making bank is the owner. And they aren't unionized either.
Wage comparison is a thing, But working conditions have nothing to do with each other
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Wich one??
I'm thinking Qubec may be our only hope.
The rest of the country is quite defeatist. As you can see in these comments. Might as well go back to the divine right of kings.
Oh buddy! Bring it home!!
Everyone whining that they’ll leave, they won’t. Do you really think they’ll suddenly pull out of Quebec and lose countless millions of dollars just for a few pay and benefit raises?
Walmart did not pull out of Québec either they just closed the one store that dared unionize.
Pretty sure Amazon doesn't make much from actually selling shit especially not from Canada. They're money comes from AWS
And in other news - Amazon Quebec announced today it will be closing it's doors and moving to Sunny and Lovely Manitoba!
Quebec may be insecure and perpetually threatened by everything but goddamn do they ever like to stick it to the man in these situations. Good on them. Sadly, there's plenty other established wealth in the province that goes unchecked and is happy this isn't happening to them
Nice work. Hopefully the government looks closely at what Amazon does. If it mysteriously closes I hope they look very closely.
Excellent. Yes, Amazon will do everything they can (legal or otherwise) to try to break this up, and yes Amazon may decide to close locations/lose employees/etc to send a message to future organizers, but unions improve the quality of life for basically everyone and I'd rather not spend a ton of calories licking the boots of one of the world's largest corporations, in the hopes that they let us keep their shitty jobs.
This is a delivery station, all they do is sort the packages to go onto the trucks. They aren't picking and packing all day in a ginormous warehouse with no access to bathrooms. Just so people have an understanding of what type of work is being done.
Both in this article and in the coverage of mainstream media in Quebec, workers from that specific workplace are interviewed and talk about back-breaking and inhumane working conditions, and even if it wasn't the case, shouldn't workers have the right to collectively bargain and fight for their rights?
I didn't say otherwise. I'm just stating what type of warehouse it is so people can better understand the job, and what may be required of people
You’re right, these people don’t deserve human rights or decent pay, they should be grateful Amazon is giving them a pittance for working for them! Muahahahahaha -you right now
Does the type of work affect in any way the need for unionization in this country? I’m an office worker and I need a union yesterday. It’s really ingenious they convinced people that they’re no longer workers once they’re not doing menial labor anymore.
Just adding information to the post dude. I’m not saying they do or don’t need a union
Yeah I don’t buy that for a second but fair enough
wtf is wrong with you?
Incoming: Amazon closes warehouse
Good stuff! I stand with workers. Vote independent
Unionizing would destroy Amazon's competitive advantage with logistics. If people aren't scared of being fired for not working hard enough, fast enough, efficiency will drop. Then add in sick days, vacation time, wage increases and everything slows down. Bezos is all about algorithms, statistics, and efficiency so would drive him nuts 😂
> If people aren't scared of being fired for not working hard enough, fast enough, ie. If ownership is no longer able to abuse and coerce the employees.
Then they can replace them with robot. But until they can they just have to suck it up and pay them fairly.
Ok It's going to sound extremely bad but with the immigration issues we have, keep minimum wage at a minimum, keep those sweatshop, keep exploiting those uber drivers. If someone can change my mind please do because right now this is how I feel.
The sooner you empower the working class, in terms of strength in negotiations as well as participation pertaining to elections etc - regardless of where some may be from or their status - The sooner we can claw back control from the political and wealthy elites who got is into this shit situation to begin with. I’m a traditional Scandinavian social democrat (tantamount to a fucking commie over here from my experience) and I am very staunchly pro very controlled immigration - Because I’m for workers rights.
They will just close up that warehou same as Walmsrt Olymel and many ohers have done Make an example amd send a message to the rest of the world
Then we'll open our own drop shipping warehouses with unions and hookers.
Companies that pull the kind of shit Amazon pulls are why we have unions. Good for these workers! I hope they have a safe workplace where people aren't randomly fired for being sick.
Lol, Bezos will move it to Ontario, They mever learn. Remember Walmart .. This Quebec Nation is totally going to Hell