Some Amazon workers in the GTA launch union drive with Unifor

These GTA Amazon workers say it's time for the company to listen up, pay fairly, and protect them from injuries on the warehouse floor. I see people come to work with neck brace around their neck, their back hurts, and stuff like that. Amazon is like this. We do 10 hour and a half shift. Regular a day, when it's SET, we do 11 and a half hour shift. We only get two 30-minute break. Joined by leadership from Unifor, Amazon employees packed a hall in Scarborough Wednesday to officially kick off an organizing drive across fulfillment centers in the GTA. They say their employer needs to be held accountable for unacceptable working conditions and low wages. This company is obscenely wealthy. They're making hundreds of billions in profit, and they're paying us poverty wages. Like, people can't afford gas. Groceries, rent, they can't afford to have a dignified life, they can't afford to have a family. The group is trying to emulate a recent win by workers in British Columbia who became the first certified union at an Amazon warehouse in North America earlier this year. They're now on track to secure their first collective agreement in the coming weeks. Ontario labour laws present more challenges than B.C., but Unifor's national president points to another more local example. We managed to. To organize 850 Walmart logistics and distribution workers here in the province of Ontario and Mississauga, they have their first collective agreement now. So when you have a determined, courageous group of workers, you can achieve anything. The union says Ontario is home to more than half of Amazon's Canadian workforce. Organizing is a long haul. It's a long campaign. We've been organizing in the warehouse sector now for a number of years, and we just keep building on each win. And workers really deserve to be treated better in this sector. In an email to CBC Toronto, an Amazon spokesperson called Unifor's claims untrue, accusing it of trying to force itself on employees just to collect union dues. The retail giant also defended its record on safety and compensation, saying serious injuries have dropped 70% over six years and that its average base wage in Canada exceeds $26 an hour. Tyler Cheese, CBC News, Toronto.