Labour scores a big victory - in BC
Unifor establishes a BC beachhead against the rabidly anti-union Amazon but additional changes in labour law are need if Amazon's million plus workers are going to get decent wages.
While labour disputes involving Air Canada and, to a lesser extent Canada Post, have been garnering the headlines, the really big labour news this August has been flying under the radar.
On Aug. 5, the BC Labour Relations Board upheld its July 10 decision to certify Unifor at Amazon’s Delta, B.C. facility, citing Amazon’s conduct during the union drive as a “deliberate and flagrant attempt” to inflate employee lists thereby illegally raising the the threshold for union certification.
The Board didn’t stop there—it accused Amazon of abusing the process and launching “a direct attack on employee free choice”. Unifor now holds official union status at the facility, and Amazon is legally required to begin bargaining in good faith.
Amazon’s Delta, B.C. facility employs approximately 700 workers. That number includes both full-time and seasonal staff, and as the ruling noted, it fluctuated notably during the unionization drive. Amazon was accused of hiring 148 new employees in a short span to thwart Unifor’s drive towards certification.
The key aspect of British Columbia’s labour law that made it possible for Unifor to unionize Amazon’s Delta facility is single-step certification, also known as “card check”.
The way card check works in B.C. is that if 55% or more of employees sign union cards, the union is automatically certified with no vote required. If 45–55% sign, the Labour Relations Board may call a vote.
This system reduces employer interference, which is common during secret-ballot campaigns. Moreover, the Board’s use of a remedial certification—a rare move—sets a precedent for future BC cases where Amazon might try similar tactics.
It is worth noting that at the time Unifor filed for certification at the Delta facility, it also filed an application at an Amazon facility in nearby New Westminster. Neither Unifor or Amazon have commented publicly on the status of the New Westminster application.
Amazon’s Delta facility was not the first Canadian Amazon facility to unionize. In May 2024, about 230 workers at Amazon’s DXT4 warehouse in Laval, Quebec made history by becoming the first unionized Amazon workforce in Canada, represented by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). Like BC, Quebec has card check certification but with a lower threshold of 50% + 1.
In July 2024, negotiations for a first collective agreement at Laval began but quickly stalled. In January 2025, Amazon closed all 7 of its Quebec facilities, including Laval, laying off nearly 2,000 workers.
Amazon is now serving its Quebec customers by dispatching orders from fulfillment centres outside the province (mostly Ontario) and using third-party delivery providers within Quebec.
Manitoba also has card certification. There, like in Quebec, if a union collects signed membership cards from a simple majority of employees in a proposed bargaining unit, the Manitoba Labour Board automatically certifies the union and no secret ballot vote is required. Amazon currently operates two logistical facilities in Manitoba, both located in Winnipeg. Neither are unionized although the Manitoba card certification law has only been in place since the summer of 2024.
Which brings us to the U.S.
The Staten Island JFK8 facility remains the only unionized and operating Amazon warehouse in the U.S. as of now. It was a landmark win for the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) when on April 1, 2022, workers voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favor of unionizing, making JFK8 the first (and only) unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States.
The ALU is a grassroots, independent union founded by current and former Amazon employees, including Chris Smalls, who became its public face after being fired for organizing a walkout over COVID safety concerns.
In contrast with the tiny ALU, the Teamsters are also active in trying to organize Amazon facilities in both Canada and the US. To date, however, the Teamsters have not yet been certified at any Amazon facility.
One of the problems facing U.S. union organizers is that card check certification is not mandated by law in any U.S. state the way it is in British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba (and also at the federal level). That is unlikely to change anytime soon as employer resistance to such a law, even in deep blue states such as New York and California, is fierce.
So the most powerful private sector labour union in North America (Unifor) has eked out a narrow victory at one Amazon facility in the most pro-labour jurisdiction on the continent, NDP ruled BC. And to be clear, no collective agreement has been negotiated at the Delta facility and the threat of a Quebec style mass closure by Amazon, cannot be dismissed.
Surely there must be a way to tilt the odds at least a little bit more towards the union so that workers have a better chance of securing collective bargaining.
In fact, there is and that way is called sectoral bargaining. And while sectoral bargaining is the norm in Europe, any substantive legislation of that kind is still a ways off in Canada. That said, the conversation about sectoral bargaining in the past few years has become much more sophisticated with BC leading the way.
In the 2024 BC Labour Relations Code Review, advocates like Jim Stanford from the Centre for Future Work submitted proposals highlighting the economic and social benefits of sectoral bargaining, including better wages, lower inequality, and improved job retention. Stanford’s paper was submitted as an appendix to the BC Federation of Labour’s brief which was solidly behind the proposal.
At the heart of sectoral bargaining lies the idea that instead of negotiating with one employer at a time, unions and employer councils would bargain for an entire sector—say, all fast food workers or warehouse staff.
In June, 2025, the BC government released the report of the Labour Relations Code Review Panel which included a section on sectoral bargaining and its applicability to the existing BC Labour Code which, like all North American labour codes, is based on the enterprise-focused Wagner Act. That panel’s discussion is far to too complex to delve into in this post but suffice to say, it does advance the discussion a small step forward. In a future post, I will return the panel’s report.
As of mid-2025, Amazon operates approximately 1,200 logistics facilities across North America with only two, Delta and Staten Island, unionized. Even in Mexico with its relatively strong labour laws, Amazon has successfully resisted unionization.
BC, Quebec and Manitoba should be commended for their implementation of card certification legislation and the August certification at Amazon’s Delta facility shows that the model gives unions a fighting chance against a giant employer determined to keep unions out at any cost.
But 2 facilities out of 1200 is not good enough. BC Premier David Eby has a majority government and more than 3 years left before he must face the voters. If Amazon’s million plus North American workers are ever going to have decent wages and working conditions, it will be up to BC’s NDP premier to take the lead.