How Amazon Beat the Union in Alberta
Last year, the Teamsters attempted and failed to unionize Amazon in Alberta, Canada. A reporter working for Jacobin and Ricochet went undercover at an Amazon warehouse for almost five months and witnessed firsthand the challenges put to the Teamsters’ union drive.
A reporter for Jacobin and Ricochet worked as a packer for almost five months and was on the shop floor for one of the first unionization drives at an Amazon facility in Canada. (Ashylnn Chand)
On September 14, a week after Teamsters Local 362 filed a vote to unionize Amazon’s YEG1 fulfillment center in Nisku, Alberta, the warehouse’s employees received the following message via the company’s emergency text system, usually reserved for urgent COVID-19 communications:
Did you know that union negotiations are a give and take process? While these negotiations are in good faith, there are no guaranteed outcomes. The union may trade away something you value in order to get something one group of associates or the union itself wants.
I worked at YEG1 in the months leading up to the failed unionization drive. There I saw firsthand the exhausting pace of work and the coerciveness of management but also the appeal of the job for working-class people stuck in a labor market in which low wages and bad conditions are the norm.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.