How to Take Down Amazon, with Jon Milton
In January 2024, shortly after workers in their Laval location had unionized, Amazon announced the closure of its facilities in Quebec. In a most egregious union busting moves, Amazon left 2,000 people out of work and walked away from significant investments in infrastructure to make sure workers wouldn't get a say in their conditions.
Jon Milton, Senior Communications Specialist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, shares some of the ways Labour, the community and municipalities are fighting back against Amazon. Jon also has some tactics not yet deployed to 'bring down' this corporate giant AND its exploitive business model.
Hosted by: Jessa McLean
Call to Action: Boycott Amazon Canada
Related Episodes:
- CUPW Right to Strike was recorded immediately after Canada Post workers were ordered back to work. Its a candid discussion on the state of what's often touted as Canada's strongest union.
- Another guest from the CCPA, Richard Tranjan, with a discussion on The Tenant Class
More Resources:
- Supreme Court Rules Walmart Broke QC Law - Global News
- Union says Amazon closures in Quebec are an attack on unionization - rabble.ca
- Amazon’s Quebec closures are a wake-up call for Canada’s labour movement - CCPA
- How Quebec and Canada can make Amazon pay for union-busting - CCPA
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support our work through monthly contributions: Patreon
Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. In May, In after more than two years of salting the workplace and organizing, workers
Speaker:at a Laval Amazon facility voted to unionize. Initially, the logistics and tech giant tried
Speaker:to challenge the legality of it. When that failed, they stalled on negotiations for over six months.
Speaker:Workers held rallies, they presented very reasonable demands, tried to move the process along. Then,
Speaker:in late 2024, CBC reported that Amazon were close to making their first offer. Now, that
Speaker:was on December 23rd. On January 22nd, Amazon did make an announcement, but it wasn't a good
Speaker:one. It wasn't even a bad offer. They revealed their plans to close all of their Quebec facilities.
Speaker:Not just the Laval location, and put 2,000 people out of work. That was a big fuck you to Labour.
Speaker:Union busting at its worst, really. Our next guest, John Milton from the Canadian Centre
Speaker:for Policy Alternatives, makes the case that it was also, in fact, illegal. So, what did
Speaker:workers do about it? What did the government do? That's exactly what John's here to talk
Speaker:about. On top of the work already being done, John also shares some great tactics we've not
Speaker:yet deployed to bring down not just Amazon, but it's exploitive business model that just
Speaker:feeds off our communities. So let's meet John and get to it. Welcome to Blueprints, John.
Speaker:Can you introduce yourself to the audience for me, please? Yeah, thanks for having me. So
Speaker:my name is John Milton. I am a writer and editor at the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives,
Speaker:a sort of left-wing political and economic research institute. And John, you wrote an article,
Speaker:you've written many articles, I've been poring over them. And it was in particular one about
Speaker:Amazon closing facilities in Quebec and what our response maybe should have been. Folks
Speaker:might remember the audience, we did go over what this meant for workers in Quebec and
Speaker:some of the issues around it, but John really unpacked it from what organized labor. could
Speaker:or should be doing, what our governments could or should be doing. Right at the top of your
Speaker:piece, and I'll share that in the show notes so people can pore over it, you say that the
Speaker:closures of these facilities, which 2,000 people lost their jobs, were illegal. Why were they
Speaker:illegal? People close factories all the time, right? That's right. I mean, is factory closures,
Speaker:warehouse closures, these types of things happen. These are sort of normal pieces of the economy
Speaker:that we live in. What makes this different though is that the warehouse closures were
Speaker:quite obviously although Not this is not you know, if you were to ask Amazon why they closed
Speaker:a warehouse They would say something about market forces. That's quite vague But it's quite
Speaker:obvious to any observer that one of that that the core reason why they decided to close their
Speaker:warehouses after investing significantly in the province to build new warehouses and create
Speaker:sort of quite a bit of infrastructure in the province is because there was a successful
Speaker:union drive in one of Amazon's warehouses in Laval, which is a suburb outside of Montreal.
Speaker:Observers who watch what's happening in the labor movement, with Amazon in particular,
Speaker:may know that a couple of years ago, there was also a successful union drive at an Amazon
Speaker:warehouse in New York, which did not result in those warehouses being closed. The difference
Speaker:is that Quebec has better, more worker-friendly labour laws than New York does or these and
Speaker:some of these other jurisdictions. The core difference is that in Quebec, companies where
Speaker:a union is legally formed, which was the case here, you know, there was a the majority
Speaker:of workers at Amazon's warehouse in Laval decided that they wanted to be members of a union which
Speaker:automatically forms the under Quebec's labour code. Now, that happened in Quebec, just like
Speaker:it also happened in New York, but the difference is that in Quebec, labour law says that if
Speaker:the two parties, the workers and the employer, are not able to come to an agreement for a
Speaker:first contract, for a first collective agreement, union contract, within a certain amount of
Speaker:time, then the matter can be sent to an arbitrator, a sort of neutral third party, let's say,
Speaker:who will then impose a collective agreement. For Amazon, that meant that for the first time
Speaker:in North America, they were going to have a union contract in their Laval warehouse. And
Speaker:Amazon is a company that has built its entire model, its business model on being a sort
Speaker:of what they would call a union free environment, a place where they can set the working conditions
Speaker:themselves without having... to actually negotiate with their workers collectively, right? That's
Speaker:their entire business model. And so having even a single warehouse where that's not the
Speaker:case in North America, which could then serve as an example for elsewhere, that was unacceptable
Speaker:for them. And so they decided that rather than accept that, they would rather abandon their
Speaker:significant investments that they'd made over the previous couple of years in the province,
Speaker:completely abandon those investments, those warehouses, that infrastructure, and leave
Speaker:the province entirely and have their delivery network in the province be run by a network
Speaker:of subcontractors. Do you think they would have gotten away with that response in the US had
Speaker:a contract bin looming over them, just shutting the factories? Yeah, so mean, in the US, they
Speaker:wouldn't really... the context is different, right? In the US, because workers have significantly
Speaker:less rights in the US than they do in Quebec and... elsewhere in Canada, but in Quebec in
Speaker:particular, has a more worker-friendly labor code, even though there's still a lot of work
Speaker:to be done. They wouldn't be in a position where they would be forced, really anywhere
Speaker:else, to sign that collective agreement. So they could do what they're doing in New York
Speaker:right now, which is just perpetually stalling. Negotiating, one could make the argument
Speaker:in bad faith. with the union in a way that is quite clear that their goal is to just wear
Speaker:people's energy down over time and never actually come to a collective agreement. The difference
Speaker:is that in Quebec, they can't do that. I I wrote that it's likely illegal, closures, right?
Speaker:mean, there hasn't been a court decision or anything that has declared it to be illegal
Speaker:as of yet. But we saw similar things happen when workers at Walmart and Jean-Claire in
Speaker:Quebec formed a union. In, I believe, the early 2000s, Walmart decided to close that store.
Speaker:Those workers were compensated, I should say, by the Labor Board because Walmart was found
Speaker:to have been doing illegal union busting. I think eventually that's probably going to be
Speaker:something similar to what happens here, but we'll see as those move through the courts.
Speaker:Do you know of any court cases that are pending over the Quebec Amazon closures? The union
Speaker:that workers formed at the Amazon warehouse in Laval, they did so under the banner of
Speaker:the CSN union, Confedération des sciences nationales in Quebec, which is one of the big labour federations.
Speaker:So the CSN has launched some cases at the Labour Board to try to have this declared
Speaker:as illegal union busting. You mentioned They left behind a significant investment at Amazon,
Speaker:but municipalities and provinces also invest in them. Your article mentions just kind of
Speaker:trying to point out the ways where they're actually a detriment to workers and the economy. Not
Speaker:that they should be allowed to just shut up shop and leave, but Quebec gave them basically
Speaker:a little tax haven for a few years to say thank you for these investments. Can you give any
Speaker:other examples of how Amazon with its model that it uses is actually a detriment to the
Speaker:working class. Part of how Amazon set up its infrastructure in Quebec is because the government
Speaker:of Quebec in an attempt to sort of woo the company to come and set up these warehouses. They
Speaker:have some, they have a program where if you make a certain amount of investment in the
Speaker:province, then you get a long tax holiday. And so Amazon, was granted a 15 year tax holiday
Speaker:in Quebec because of the scale of its investments in the province. The province has also given
Speaker:it things like Amazon has a data center in the town of Varennes, which is a little bit outside
Speaker:of Montreal, and they pay significantly reduced electricity rates. The government has all
Speaker:kinds, both provincial and federal, all kinds of contracts with Amazon Web Services to run
Speaker:internet infrastructure. So these are sort of like, you know both direct and indirect
Speaker:subsidies to the company in order to sort of attract their investment into the province
Speaker:so that you know, we could all be so lucky to work the sort of backbreaking labor in in
Speaker:Amazon warehouses where you know, I'm sure we've all heard the stories but there's a lot of
Speaker:horror stories particularly in the US of you know workers being forced to pee in bottles
Speaker:and in the hallways of the the warehouses that they work in are dying of heart attacks on
Speaker:the floor because the pace of work is so high. This isn't the model that Amazon uses or maximum
Speaker:exploitation. from the government's perspective, these are organizations that create jobs. And
Speaker:so we should be trying to do our best to attract them. Yeah. I mean, it's no wonder that workers
Speaker:try so hard to salt and unionize some of these facilities. What a blow I imagine it felt for
Speaker:organized labor to kind of have that moment pending in a contract at an Amazon facility,
Speaker:especially after watching what comrades were having to go through in New York. know Chris
Speaker:Smalls, you know, comes and tours Canada a lot, a friend of labor up here. And so it's definitely
Speaker:something a lot of us were watching, cheering on. Like anytime we can expand union membership,
Speaker:we understand the value in that. So. What was the response from the broader Canadian labor
Speaker:movement when they felt that blow? Yeah, so at least in Quebec, I think that the response
Speaker:from the English Canadian labor movement has been a little more muted. It's a sort of classic
Speaker:division between the Quebec and Canadian labor movements that has been the case for decades.
Speaker:But at least in Quebec, I this has been a pretty big moment, right? know, unions are mobilizing
Speaker:in lot of different ways to try to put pressure on Amazon, put pressure on the government
Speaker:to sort of ties with Amazon. I know as a result of these public pressure campaigns, know, the
Speaker:city of Montreal, example, municipal workers at the city of Montreal are now no longer
Speaker:allowed to purchase things for work using Amazon, right? Various sort of branches of government
Speaker:are attempting to... take measures that are sort reducing their organization's ties with
Speaker:Amazon. Dozens of labor unions, probably more. There's a list on the website for the Boycott
Speaker:Amazon campaign, as well as lots of community organizations, student associations, various
Speaker:organizations in the province have signed on to a organized boycott campaign for Amazon,
Speaker:which has... really taken off in the province. mean, think that there's actually a pretty
Speaker:wide, wide swath of general public in Quebec that has canceled their Amazon account. And
Speaker:the boycott campaign is actually, you know, an organized collective campaign where there
Speaker:are people standing outside of metro stations in Montreal every day handing out flyers, explaining
Speaker:to people why and how to boycott Amazon. If you walk around the city in Montreal, there
Speaker:are posters everywhere explaining people how and why they should boycott Amazon. So it's
Speaker:something that's really taken off and that's the result of people from the labor movement,
Speaker:a lot of people who previously had been Amazon workers in these warehouses that are now closed,
Speaker:as well as allies from other organizations, labor unions, groups like the Immigrant Workers
Speaker:Center that have been really active in trying to... pressure Amazon, but also pressure municipal,
Speaker:provincial governments to cut ties. I imagine that becomes easier to do now in this elbows
Speaker:up mentality where Amazon is seen as a US based company and Bezos is upstanding there with
Speaker:Trump at his inauguration. So like Quebec has already sold, I imagine this becomes an easier
Speaker:sell across Canada as It can represent more than just fighting back against union busting,
Speaker:right? But a response to Trump's economic aggressions, whatever words we're using to describe his
Speaker:behavior. But your piece that you wrote there is full of other ways that we could push back
Speaker:against Amazon and, I mean, could be applied more broadly as well. I just want to note,
Speaker:that's interesting that Quebec you're having municipalities pass specifically Amazon boycott
Speaker:sort of, know, like telling their employees not to use Amazon. And I imagine all of the
Speaker:municipalities that are passing by Canada motions will inherently be boycotting Amazon as well.
Speaker:So it would be interesting to see how this, I mean, if we could only fast forward a year
Speaker:to see what all of this back and forth is going to end up. It's all just real speculation at
Speaker:this point, but Let's talk about the other ways, the other pressures that maybe we could
Speaker:put on different levels of government to respond to this adequately. You talk about maybe not
Speaker:canceling contracts, because that's, mean, he canceled NAFTA. I didn't realize we had so
Speaker:much money tied up in Amazon contracts. Yeah, that's right. So the governments in Canada,
Speaker:the provincial and especially at the federal level have... hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker:tied up in contracts with Amazon Web Services in particular, that runs a lot of the cloud
Speaker:infrastructure for government websites across the spectrum. So that is a problem, obviously,
Speaker:particularly in the context of what appears to be a looming, already begun, unclear trade
Speaker:war with the United States, that these are American-owned companies that are very close to the Trump
Speaker:regime in the United States that have, you know, could be used as tools in that trade
Speaker:war. The governments that have these contracts with Amazon Web Services in order to provide
Speaker:cloud services for government digital infrastructure need to be thinking seriously about the ways
Speaker:that they can get out of that dependence on Amazon, in particular, US companies in general.
Speaker:Now, Quebec is a bit of an interesting example because Quebec as a sort of like continental
Speaker:hydroelectric superpower, right, actually has more data center infrastructure set up than
Speaker:the rest of Canada by a pretty significant margin. And you can see that in their government contracts.
Speaker:While they do rely far too heavily on Amazon Web Services, it's proportionately quite
Speaker:a bit less than the federal government and other provinces because they've sort of made a bit
Speaker:of an industrial strategy in order to attract domestically run and data centers in the province.
Speaker:So Quebec could, is in a better position than the rest of Canada to ramp that up on a shorter
Speaker:term basis in order to be able to replace Amazon Web Services as a sort of data, as
Speaker:the organization that runs the digital infrastructure in Canada or hosts the digital infrastructure
Speaker:in Canada, I should say. But otherwise, I if we want to go after Amazon directly as opposed
Speaker:to Amazon, the sort of logistics network, retailer, whatever, this company is continuing to operate
Speaker:in the Quebec market, even though it's closed its actual warehouses. And the way that it's
Speaker:doing so is through subcontractors. And so these are, you know, people who are on the
Speaker:gig economy model, who own their own vehicles and pay for their own repairs of their own
Speaker:vehicles. don't have any sort of like a formal employment relationship with Amazon. Now, this
Speaker:is a model that basically means that, basically allows for companies to shirk their responsibilities
Speaker:to pay for things like health benefits, have job stability, these basic things. And it's
Speaker:a problem to begin with, but now this situation with Amazon provides us with a bit of an opening
Speaker:to go after that model more generally. If we want to punish Amazon for its illegal union
Speaker:busting in the province, then we should go after the model that it's using to replace what would
Speaker:have been the unionized workforce. And doing so would actually be a win for all workers
Speaker:in the province because it would tackle some of these very exploitative gig economy practices.
Speaker:So that would be really a big win for a of workers in this province. I would suggest they
Speaker:should name the bill when they do this after Bezos so that all the other capitalists can
Speaker:give him credit for eating away at that precarious labor force that they have been not just relying
Speaker:on, but building. That is a trend that we need to buck regardless of our anger with Amazon.
Speaker:So many different industries are operating on using contractors instead of employees and
Speaker:finding different ways to you know, not be beholden to the weak labor laws we do have.
Speaker:I mean, I think that like if we're talking about like, you know, how do we how do we address
Speaker:these things? We want to address these things in ways that actually help advance broader
Speaker:social goals. Right. And so, you know, if we want to if we want to go after Amazon and punish
Speaker:them for the crimes that they've committed here, then then we should do so in a way that is
Speaker:also going to prevent other companies from doing the same thing. that is choking out their
Speaker:sort subcontracting model, moving the sort of gig economy as a whole towards better working
Speaker:conditions for workers, more job stability, wages and benefits. I mean, these are things
Speaker:that both go after Amazon and also prevent any future Amazons from doing the same thing.
Speaker:Your suggestion isn't to necessarily switch to a different service. I don't know if we
Speaker:don't have the equivalent of an Amazon Canada. But you do have an idea of what we can do with
Speaker:the warehouses that are left empty. And this would arguably be a way, in addition to legislation,
Speaker:to push back against the gig economy, at least when it comes to, what do you call that,
Speaker:delivery services? Yeah, like delivery and logistics. Yeah, so I mean, this is, I think, the last
Speaker:thing, right? Is this question of like, well, Amazon has made all of these warehouses in
Speaker:the past couple of years, which they're now abandoning. And so this is infrastructure that
Speaker:exists in the province, right? I mean, just because Amazon is withdrawing its presence
Speaker:as a company from the province, the physical buildings, these warehouses still stand, right?
Speaker:So what do we do with them now? And so I think that one of the things that we should look
Speaker:into doing is integrating these warehouses and this physical infrastructure into the network.
Speaker:of Canada Post. Now, Canada Post obviously is a publicly run logistics network that is
Speaker:much, much more deeply integrated across the country than Amazon is. It's the only logistics
Speaker:network in the country that's able to sort of penetrate every sort of every address in the
Speaker:country is reached by Canada Post by legislation, staffed with union labor, good, well paying
Speaker:stable jobs that are that are, you good for the workers that pay there and run by one
Speaker:of Canada's most important storied unions. We have a sort of plug and play network ready
Speaker:that we could give this infrastructure over to and then use these new warehouses as ways
Speaker:to hire back all of these workers that Amazon has laid off into good stable union jobs
Speaker:in a logistics network that is publicly run that benefits the public that has a public
Speaker:mission. And so I think that, you know, if we're, if we're dreaming about the ways that we could,
Speaker:the, we could go after Amazon, uh, and, and the ways that we could respond to this, I mean,
Speaker:this is something that we should put on the table. I like a lot about what I'm hearing,
Speaker:but there's a few things that kind of stand out because in our reaction to Trump, it has
Speaker:been very much nationalistic. And a lot of the suggested avenues would actually hurt workers
Speaker:in the United States, right? It's this tariff war back and forth and there's been some responses
Speaker:that are really just, you know, worry about our own. But these proposals only strengthen
Speaker:the working class in general, right? And set employment trends as opposed to just attacking
Speaker:different sets of workers. But I don't like when you use dreaming, Even the face you made
Speaker:while you say it, it's like you don't want people to think of it as some dreamy, lofty, utopian
Speaker:idea. These are like, you're talking about very tangible solutions. Your words, you know, all
Speaker:within legal framework. And I'm not arguing that point, it is. So plausible, reasonable.
Speaker:Okay, I mean, you're talking to another socialist, so I'm not giving you grief on any of these
Speaker:ideas, but Why aren't they being picked up in general? If someone at the CCPA can sit there
Speaker:and look at this and be like, here's a laundry list of things you could do instead of nothing.
Speaker:What is the reality of the situation that we're in that we don't see these kinds of responses?
Speaker:We are swimming in the sea of neoliberalism. We're swimming in the neoliberalism market.
Speaker:Logics are the sea that we swim in that is so ubiquitous around us. see it anymore. And
Speaker:as a result, ideas like this, are actually even within the legal frameworks that we currently
Speaker:have, right, we don't need a socialist revolution in order to do these things, right. But because
Speaker:if not the general public, at least like the political class in this country is so wrapped
Speaker:up in the in market logics and attempting to sort of incentivize the market to do social
Speaker:goals and all of these things. and has been for decades now. Ideas like these that are
Speaker:concretely possible right now seem like utopian fairy tales. But I think the task of people
Speaker:who are doing the type of work that you and I do, right, of imagining what a better world
Speaker:can look like is to sort of break out of that sort of glass box that we've put ourselves
Speaker:in and say, actually, there's a whole other world out there of possibilities of things
Speaker:that we could be doing. And here's what they look like. I think this is kind of like a
Speaker:off topic question, but you think Amazon regrets closing those warehouses now that they're looking
Speaker:at all these Chinese tariffs importing to the US? Or do you think it's just like this, no
Speaker:matter what we do, we will not let like a union contract through in one of our warehouses.
Speaker:Like they will just go down in flames on this. This is the hill maybe Bezos will die on.
Speaker:I think that this is probably the hill that Basics will die on. think that Amazon has
Speaker:really staked itself out as a company that will absolutely burn every bridge before
Speaker:allowing its workers to collectively organize and allow its workers to just like negotiate
Speaker:basic things in their own workplaces that they give, you know, a third of their lives
Speaker:to. And so they're going to go down swinging in that regard. And we need to act in consequence
Speaker:with that. We need to also go out swinging with them. And I think that that is part of the
Speaker:campaign that's been happening in Quebec since the Amazon closure has happened is a response
Speaker:to that. I think is the closest to a type of proportionality that we've seen with regards
Speaker:to Amazon is a campaign that Now that these closures have happened, is seeking to have,
Speaker:at a society-wide level, have us cut ties with Amazon. At government level, at sort of individual
Speaker:consumer level, at all of these things, to sort of treat them as this sort of malignant
Speaker:force that they are and remove them. That is probably the model that we're going to need
Speaker:to go with if Amazon doesn't change its approach to the way that it deals with its workers.
Speaker:Oh, I'm absolutely here for painting all capitalists as a malignant force. So that's why going
Speaker:at it from the angle that you're going at it, you know, in response to the union busting
Speaker:and their treatment of workers and the fact that they've just got a really harmful model
Speaker:for local economies and beyond, rather than the anti-US. framework, right, because then
Speaker:that puts us in a different mentality, then we pick targets based on where their headquarters
Speaker:are and not necessarily how they're treating workers. So I imagine you're full of ideas
Speaker:in terms of legislation, like how we could protect gig workers or, and beyond that, but what
Speaker:about for people on the street, even non-unionized workers? Although I hear a lot of hate about
Speaker:Amazon we have for a long time, Like Bezos is like an easy target for whatever reason. Like
Speaker:Galen Weston, I don't know. We remember their name and they're, they look like villains.
Speaker:I think that helps. But I've not seen the kind of replication that you're talking about in
Speaker:Quebec outside of Quebec. You only touched on that divide, but I'll be honest. I think I
Speaker:was kind of naive to the fact that there'd be that kind of divide within the labor movement.
Speaker:It was so egregious what they did in Quebec. I expected a nationwide response. So you got
Speaker:any advice for grassroots organizers beyond that are looking to kind of use this moment
Speaker:as a way to point people in the right direction? Because, you know, those notable characters
Speaker:that stand behind Trump, um, figuratively and actually, you know, at his inauguration or
Speaker:whatnot, it's, it's nice for people to understand that those are the players behind all of these
Speaker:policies and should feel our angst, right? Rather than just letting Trump take the blame, right?
Speaker:Because then when he's gone, will they still remain as class conscious as they were, right?
Speaker:So any idea for seizing this moment and building class consciousness versus a nationalistic
Speaker:response? Yeah, I mean, you know, I wish I had an easy plug and play answer for this. John,
Speaker:we need one. I know, you know. Listen, the great labour organiser, Jane McAlevey, said that
Speaker:there are no shortcuts and she was right. There aren't, right? The book's on my shelf over
Speaker:there. That's right. I mean, the way that we build the capacity to respond to these things
Speaker:and transform the world that we live in is by forming, joining, and transforming organizations
Speaker:that can act collectively in the interests of the working class. And that means that if
Speaker:you are a union worker participating in your labor union, if you are a non-union worker
Speaker:talking to your colleagues about organizing collectively, if you are live in a community
Speaker:where there are active community organizations, taking maybe time once a month and going and
Speaker:joining a meeting, right? That means getting to know your neighbors and being able to take
Speaker:action collectively at first at a small scale and then at a larger scale. And we need to
Speaker:build collective self-financed democratic organizations that are capable of acting in the interest
Speaker:of the class. Those organizations everywhere in the country, but particularly in English
Speaker:Canada, hollowed out over the past couple of decades in Quebec, they still remain a little
Speaker:bit stronger than in the rest of the country. And I think that that's part of the reason
Speaker:why you see the divide that you see. But we need to rebuild and rebuild those organizations.
Speaker:And there's not a solution that we can do over the course of the week that will do that.
Speaker:That's a long term project of building political power and building organizations that are
Speaker:capable of wielding it. I wish I had an easier answer for you, but I don't. No one does, John.
Speaker:I've had, we're at episode 179, think, when the time this airs. And not that I've asked
Speaker:everyone that big question. I was kind of picking on you there, but nobody's had, they all remind
Speaker:me, almost everyone reminds me that it is a long fight. I'm a very impatient person by
Speaker:nature. So, but you know, that's not to say there's not things that people can do in that
Speaker:week. that won't work towards those ends. I'm wondering, I think when we covered this story,
Speaker:I should have brushed up my notes a little bit, but I think when we were covering this story
Speaker:back in January, early February, I pulled up something about workers in Alberta, perhaps
Speaker:trying to unionize an Amazon facility. Are there other facilities across Canada that we should
Speaker:be watching in terms of unionizing an Amazon? Yeah, I mean, it's tough to say because these
Speaker:campaigns take place, you know, their very nature take place discreetly until they're
Speaker:right. Because, you know, obviously with a company that is so bent on destroying any active
Speaker:efforts at collective organization, you know, things need to take place somewhat clandestinely
Speaker:until until they're ready to go public. However, you know, there's a lot of Signs pointing to
Speaker:the possibility of union drives happening elsewhere in British Columbia, which it's worth pointing
Speaker:out is one of the only other provinces that has card check certification in Canada, which
Speaker:means that if 50 % plus one of workers signed union cards, then a union, they have their
Speaker:union. They don't need to afterwards go into a referendum period. in which the company,
Speaker:a company like Amazon, can engage in all types of illegal union busting during a public referendum
Speaker:period. So if 50 % of workers plus one sign union cards, the union is formed, period. And
Speaker:so I would be watching out for campaigns in British Columbia in that regard. I will keep
Speaker:my ear to the ground. But yes, I think most people can appreciate, and hopefully they've
Speaker:heard, but maybe you can share a little bit before we go. because we didn't hit on just
Speaker:how dirty Amazon can play when folks are trying to unionize a facility. I mean, we know what
Speaker:happens when they lose. They're really sore losers. But they play really dirty too in
Speaker:terms of trying to like spend millions of dollars on surveilling their employees, right? And
Speaker:union busting tactics, particularly in that referendum stage when it's most effective.
Speaker:following New York, mean it's incredible the things that they'll go through. Yeah, mean
Speaker:Amazon uses the entire gamut of union busting techniques and is even sort of an innovator
Speaker:in them. They're a think tank of union busting, they probably have a whole department. They
Speaker:almost definitely do. And so you know, they do everything from firing people or laying
Speaker:people off who are publicly associated with the union, running very obvious surveillance,
Speaker:hiring private security companies, posting gigantic banners that are against the union
Speaker:inside workplaces, and doing things that are... Even the US Labor Board has declared to
Speaker:be illegal, which is not exactly a particularly worker-friendly organization. But Amazon has
Speaker:sort of decided that they would rather just pay a fine afterwards for doing these sort
Speaker:of illegal union-busting things rather than accepting that they're playing fair during
Speaker:a referendum. Those reactions from those tasked with enforcing labor laws don't even slow them
Speaker:down. I imagine the fines are just pocket change to that company. Any idea what their hit to
Speaker:the bottom line has been in Quebec? Whether that's been effective enough to make them kind
Speaker:of take notice and question their tactics? I don't have those numbers. I'd be curious
Speaker:to be a fly on the wall in the meetings where they're looking back and seeing the blowback
Speaker:or they just, mean, if they're any good at what they do, they don't even pay attention. Like
Speaker:they just keep going forward. I mean, that would be my advice to other people, right? Like don't
Speaker:let, don't slow down for your detractors, but it. I think it just leads credence to the suggestions
Speaker:of, you know, building unions from the bottom up and as the only real solution to these folks
Speaker:pleading with our governments to enact fines or, or other kind of tiny bits of legislation
Speaker:seems like an uphill battle at times. But, uh, you know, all, all the more reason for stronger
Speaker:labor. Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I mean, here's the thing. I think that like, you know,
Speaker:both stronger labor and, a wrong government that is willing to take legislative action
Speaker:against these companies are both essential components of taking on companies like Amazon. The issue
Speaker:is that in order to get to the stage where we have a government that is willing and able
Speaker:to do this type of thing, that is just because of the neoliberal economy that we live in and
Speaker:the sort of decades of neoliberal hegemony, we're not going to get there. without a strong
Speaker:labor movement, right? It is a precursor to having a government that is capable of acting
Speaker:in the interest of the working class is having a working class that is capable of acting
Speaker:in its own interest. We'll get there. Yeah. Let's hope. Well, we have to do more than
Speaker:hope, John, but we are, right? People are actively on the case. I appreciate the work that you
Speaker:do that contributes to that. Sometimes. you we're all labeled as utopic and the solutions
Speaker:that we suggest or the political ways that we want to go are just like not even feasible.
Speaker:But quite often when you crunch the numbers or you get people working on this, you can
Speaker:present very feasible solutions to what seem like insurmountable problems. So I, know, I
Speaker:did tease you about being a policy wonk, but you clarified that, but there is value in
Speaker:like talking about policy in different ways forward and doing that kind of work. Thank
Speaker:you so much, John, for coming on and explaining this to the audience. I did not give the case
Speaker:justice when I kind of gave an overview back in late January. I was angry, but I had no
Speaker:solutions. And you really did kind of provide some solutions to folks, which is far more
Speaker:constructive than just ranting about it. Yeah, pleasure to be here. And I mean, as always,
Speaker:The most immediate solution for any of your listeners is to go out and form or join an
Speaker:organization in the place where you live and work. Absolutely. Thank you. That is a wrap
Speaker:on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. If you'd like to
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