Amazon YVR2 organizing Timeline
How workers won at Amazon YVR2
January 2023
Interest to unionize among Amazon workers at YVR2 and YVR3
Unifor is contacted by several workers at Metro Vancouver-area Amazon facilities and the union responds with a visibility campaign to introduce the idea of unionization to a wider audience of Amazon workers. Unifor leafletted at the gate and began ongoing discussions with workers about the benefits of joining a union.
October 2023
Amazon workers begin signing union cards
After a significant growth in interest in a union, Unifor begins to distribute union cards to be signed by Amazon workers.
May 2024
Application for Certification
On behalf of the Amazon organizing committee, Unifor files a certification application with the BC Labour Relations Board (BCLRB) to unionize workers at Amazon’s YVR2 fulfillment centre in Delta, BC.
Unifor also files an “Unfair Labour Practices” complaint against Amazon alleging employer obstruction, including over-staffing to artificially inflate the total employee count and prevent a vote.
Just after the Union submitted its certification application, the BCLRB orders that a representation vote be held where workers would cast ballots on whether they wished to unionize. Amazon appeals that order at the BCLRB. Their appeal is denied. Amazon also applies for a stay of execution (like an injunction) in the BC Supreme Court to prevent the representation vote from proceeding. That injunction is denied. (legal loss #1 and #2 for Amazon).
The representation vote occurs despite Amazon’s efforts to prevent it, and the ballots are sealed pending the outcome of the certification application and unfair labour practices complaint hearing.
May 2024 to February 2025
Amazon fights against counting of the ballots at YVR2
Amazon ties the union up in litigation where it argues that the union did not have the required number of union cards signed for the ballots to be counted.
During this time, Unifor presents its evidence that Amazon interfered with the process in the workplace by over-staffing.
July 2025
BCLRB Findings & Union Certification
The B.C. Labour Board rules that Amazon’s conduct was intended to thwart workers’ ability to unionize (legal loss #3 for Amazon).
The BCLRB decides that the only fair solution after such extreme interference from Amazon is to certify a union for Amazon YVR2 workers. The ruling cites misconduct by Amazon including an anti-union campaign and hiring excess employees to prevent union efforts.
The union certification means YVR2 is the second Amazon fulfillment centre in Canada to unionize.
August 2025
BCRLB Reconsideration Attempt by Amazon
The BCLRB denies Amazon’s appeal of the ruling, upholding the certification (legal loss #4 for Amazon). It is worth reading the BCLRB decision because it is a strong condemnation of Amazon’s deceptive tactics and attempts to cover-up the anti-union campaign.
August 2025
Bargaining begins at Amazon YVR2
Unifor begins the process of forming a worker-led bargaining committee that will craft proposals for the first collective agreement with Amazon. The company has continued to say that it will fight unionization in court, but Amazon is almost out of options, and we’re confident in the position already upheld by the BCLRB will result in yet another dismissal.
During the legal fights against the union, Amazon has consistently claimed that it is acting on behalf of workers’ interests—but we all know better. If Amazon really cares about its employees, it will abide by the law and negotiate in good faith with workers to improve wages and working conditions. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers enjoy the protection of a union contract. Amazon workers deserve the same respect.
February 2026
Mediator finds Amazon responsible for the bargaining impasse
After Unifor applied for mediation, a Labour Board mediator joined bargaining in March and met with the parties over five days. On June 1, 2026, mediator Mark J. Brown reported that he could not recommend terms both sides would accept, and he set out why.
Brown found that Amazon "engaged in impugned conduct" at the table, taking "an uncompromising position without a reasonable justification" on productivity, quality and inactive time. Amazon wanted the union to agree in writing that its current rate and discipline standards are reasonable, and to accept future changes made at other fulfillment centres with no right to challenge them. Brown wrote that this "neuters the Union from any input into these topics even though its members apparently have issues with them," and that it "essentially creates arbitral immunity."
He also found that Amazon's late tabling of a wage proposal, after being asked repeatedly to produce one, "fails to make a reasonable effort to conclude a collective agreement."
Brown pointed to the double standard: Amazon wanted the contract to follow what happens at other fulfillment centres on workplace standards, but said it would "never" agree to match what workers at those centres are paid.
On June 2, 2026, the Board asked both parties to respond by June 8. Unifor accepted the mediator's report. Amazon rejected it.
August 2026
Labour Board orders first contract to be settled by arbitration
On August 4, 2026, Associate Chair Andres Barker directed that the first collective agreement at YVR2 be concluded through arbitration by a single arbitrator (legal loss #5 for Amazon). Amazon had argued instead for strike or lockout. The Board rejected that.
The decision returns to how Amazon behaved during the organizing drive. Barker notes the Board's earlier finding of "list padding," where Amazon hired employees to artificially inflate the size of the bargaining unit, and that this conduct was not merely an unfair labour practice but an attempt to "frustrate or defeat the Code itself." The result, he wrote, was "a remedially certified unit whose composition had been manipulated with an intention to frustrate the Union."
Barker also found Amazon's union security proposal to be a clause "exceedingly few unions in the province would be willing to accept," and accepted that Unifor could credibly see it as inflammatory and aimed at undermining the union's standing with workers.
The Board's conclusion was direct: "the Employer's conduct before and after certification has impacted the ability of the parties to reach a first collective agreement." Barker added that the direction to arbitration "relates to the Employer's own actions."