“Amazon’s reasons … are based on simple suspicion, supposition or hearsay,” the judge writes.
A labour tribunal has dismissed Amazon’s challenge of the unionization of its warehouse workers in Laval.
Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail rejected the online shopping giant’s argument that the process by which employees unionized earlier this year was unlawful because it involved workers signing union cards instead of voting in a secret ballot.
Lawyers for the company had argued that the absence of a secret ballot violated workers’ freedom of association rights.
In a decision dated Tuesday, administrative judge Irene Zaikoff writes that “the code provides that an employer is not an interested party on the representative nature of an association of employees. Furthermore, Amazon cannot invoke freedom of association on behalf of its employees.
“Voting by secret ballot remains exceptional. The court may use it if it deems it necessary in certain circumstances. It will only be mandatory if the association brings together between 35 and 50 per cent of employees,” she wrote.
The retail giant also challenged the vetting process that was followed by the labour relations manager to accredit the union.
“An abundant and consistent case law concludes that an employer has no interest in contesting the procedure for verifying the representative character,” she wrote.
Amazon implied that the manager did not fulfill their duties, “violated the code and falsely claimed in the decision accrediting the union to have examined the accreditation file and found that the plaintiff enjoys representative character. These are serious assertions” against a member of the tribunal staff, Zaikoff added.
Zaikoff also rejected Amazon’s request to revoke the decision to accredit the union.
“As of May 6, 2024, through its challenge to the bargaining unit, Amazon is attempting to call into question the quality of memberships. Now that the union is certified, it repeats its allegations, but under the guise of violating the process. It is always a question of calling into question the free membership of employees, which does not concern the employer.
“On their face, Amazon’s reasons for attempting to overturn the accreditation decision are based on simple suspicion, supposition or hearsay.”
The 240 or so unionized workers belong to a union local of the Fédération du commerce, affiliated with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, or CSN.