Canada’s only Amazon union is facing some disunion.
Driving the news: Amazon has asked the B.C. Labour Relations Board (LRB) for a pause in bargaining with Unifor Local 114 — the union representing workers at the company’s only unionized Canadian warehouse — as a faction of workers tries to get the union decertified.
The group claims that Unifor reps essentially forced the union on the workers and they believe over half of the warehouse’s 800 employees don’t want to be unionized.
Zoom in: After two years of organizing by Unifor, the LRB certified the union at Amazon’s YVR2 facility in Delta in July 2025, with the board ruling that it had violated B.C.’s Labour Code, running a “deliberate, calculated, [and] pervasive” anti-union campaign. These tensions have bled into bitter negotiations for the union’s first collective bargaining deal.
Amazon got into trouble with the LRB again this year, which found that it purposefully withheld pay bumps for unionized workers. Last week, the LRB ruled that binding arbitration was required to resolve the dispute — Amazon appealed the ruling.
Why it matters: Throughout this saga, the LRB has consistently sided with Unifor, which bodes well for a favourable arbitration. The decertification push could derail progress, even if the union stays in place. If it gets decertified, that could sound the death knell for Amazon workers organizing nationally following the closure of the only other unionized plant last year.—QH
