A few days after the first, the CSN sent Amazon another formal notice after Amazon literally plastered the break rooms with information leaflets about the CSN’s unionization campaign. Over the past few days, Amazon has also been sending all employees text messages directly to their cellphones.
Multiple photos taken by members of the Montréal Amazon Workers Union (MAWU-CSN) show the many plexiglass panels separating the employee break areas covered with leaflets informing employees of their “rights,” including the right to refuse to join a union.
In another leaflet, also translated and widely distributed, Amazon argues that the many benefits offered to “Amazonians” were in place long before the union appeared on the scene.
In a formal notice sent to Jean-François Héroux, General Manager of the Montréal distribution center (YUL2), the CSN states that the messaging “persistently and intrusively reminds employees of [Amazon’s] opposition to the process currently underway. Employees are not free to avoid this message, which they perceive as intimidating and harassing.”
The CSN is relying on the following provisions of the Québec Labour Code:
12. No employer, or person acting for an employer or an association of employers, shall in any manner seek to dominate, hinder or finance the formation or the activities of any association of employees, or to participate therein.
13. No person shall use intimidation or threats to induce anyone to become, refrain from becoming or cease to be a member of an association of employees or an employers’ association.
14. No employer nor any person acting for an employer or an employers’ association may refuse to employ any person because that person exercises a right arising from this Code, or endeavour by intimidation, discrimination or reprisals, threat of dismissal or other threat, or by the imposition of a sanction or by any other means, to compel an employee to refrain from or to cease exercising a right arising from this Code.
