What Is Collective Bargaining?
Many Amazon workers at YVR2 are experiencing their first union job. It's normal to wonder what collective bargaining means.
Today, Amazon decides almost every aspect of your workplace, including
✔ Job assignments
✔ Productivity expectations
✔ Work changes
✔ Scheduling
✔ Health and safety procedures
✔ Cross-training opportunities
✔ Discipline
✔ Workplace policies
✔ How work is performed
With a union, those decisions don't automatically become union decisions.
Instead, workers gain the legal right to sit down with Amazon and negotiate many of the rules that affect their jobs. Together, the union and Amazon negotiate a collective agreement that both the company and workers must follow.
A collective agreement is a legally binding document. Once it's negotiated, Amazon cannot simply ignore it or change it whenever it chooses.
Did You Know?
A union doesn't replace management. Amazon continues to operate its business. Collective bargaining simply gives workers the legal right to negotiate many of the rules that affect their jobs.
What Does This Mean for Amazon Workers?
Collective bargaining is about balance. Instead of one side making every workplace decision, workers gain a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them every day.
That's why reaching a first collective agreement is such an important step.
Ask yourself: If Amazon makes all of the workplace decisions today, shouldn't workers have a voice in decisions that affect them every day?
Margaret Olal
[email protected]
236-334-1198