Amazon Workers Launch Unifor Drive Across GTA Warehouses

Amazon workers packed a hall in Scarborough on Wednesday to launch an organizing drive across fulfillment centres in the Greater Toronto Area with Unifor, Canada's largest private-sector union. The group, calling itself United Canadian Amazon Workers, says it wants safer jobs, fairer pay and more respect on the warehouse floor, CBC News reported.

Unifor national president Lana Payne and Ontario regional director Samia Hashi spoke at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto on Sheppard Avenue East. "Amazon workers want and deserve better working conditions, safer jobs, fairer pay, dignity and respect," Payne said in a news release. Hashi said warehouse injuries are rising and that too many workers fear punishment if they speak up. "Workers have a legal right to organize a union in their workplace. That decision belongs to them, not to Amazon," she said.

What workers say they want

In an Instagram post Wednesday, United Canadian Amazon Workers listed demands that include better job security, an end to favouritism, better pay, benefits and vacation time, health and safety prioritized over productivity, lawful treatment of pregnant and injured workers, respect for breaks, fairness in hiring and fixes to company bureaucracy, CBC reported.

On Wednesday morning, workers in Unifor red also leafleted outside Amazon sites in Scarborough, Bolton and Ajax, TorontoToday reported. Flyer demands included raising pay and slowing the pace of work. Jack Cobb, who works at the Scarborough fulfillment centre and sits on its joint health and safety committee, told TorontoToday that starting pay there is about $24 an hour and that the campaign is pushing toward $30. Cobb said his own rate of $27.60 an hour makes it hard to save in Toronto. "I'd like to have a family one day, and it's just not possible with this wage," he said.

Brandon Hart, who has worked at Amazon warehouses across the GTA since 2017, told The Globe and Mail that injuries and the speed of picking and loading boxes pushed him to organize. He alleged Amazon "prioritize[s] productivity over safety," TorontoToday reported. Jevorne Dickson, who worked at the Bolton warehouse until a 2024 injury, described 10-hour shifts with a 30-minute break and days of 30,000 to 40,000 steps. "It takes a toll on your body," she told The Globe.

Injury rates and Amazon's reply

Payne cited Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board data showing injury rates at Amazon facilities in the province nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025. TorontoToday reported the lost-time claim rate rose from about 1.5 per 100 workers in 2020 to about 3.5 per 100 in 2025, and that WSIB has paid more than $17 million in benefits this year to injured Amazon warehouse workers in Ontario, a sum that has climbed each year since 2019.

Amazon disputed the union's framing. Spokesperson Amy Diaz told CBC that "much of what Unifor is claiming is simply untrue," that safety is the company's highest priority, and that average base wages in Canada exceed $26 an hour. She said serious injuries have dropped 70 per cent over six years and called the drive "another example of Unifor trying to force themselves upon our employees in order to fund their organization through union dues," CBC reported. Spokesperson Sam Stephenson told The Globe and TorontoToday that Amazon values a "direct relationship" between teams and managers so every voice is heard, not just a few. He said Amazon has invested more than CAD $78 million this year in pay increases for Canadian operations employees, and that the company's global recordable incident rate has improved 43 per cent over six years. "Safety and achievable performance expectations aren't mutually exclusive," he said.

Building on B.C.

Unifor said the GTA drive builds on organizing in British Columbia, where Amazon workers at the YVR2 warehouse in Delta were certified after the B.C. Labour Relations Board found the company had tried to block unionization, TorontoToday and Unifor's Nov. 3 media advisory reported. The Globe notes only two Amazon warehouses worldwide are unionized — Staten Island, N.Y., and Delta — and neither yet has an enforceable collective agreement. Amazon and Unifor remain in a legal fight over a B.C. contract while another group there seeks to decertify the union, The Globe reported.

Unifor says Ontario holds more than half of Amazon's Canadian workforce and most of its Canadian fulfillment centres, per CBC. Forming a union in Ontario still requires card signing by at least 40 per cent of workers, then a labour-board vote with a majority — a two-step process unions say is harder in high-turnover workplaces, The Globe noted. The drive lands ahead of the holiday shopping rush. Whether GTA Amazon sites follow will depend on how many workers sign cards in the weeks ahead.