Amazon violated labour code with selective pay increase to B.C. workers, board finds

Security guards walk in the parking lot outside Amazon's YVR2 fulfilment centre, in Delta, B.C., on Friday, July 11, 2025. Unifor says the B.C. Labour Relations Board has awarded workers at the facility a retroactive wage increase after the company increased pay for workers at other facilities in the Lower Mainland, but excluded workers from the union-certified warehouse last year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The B.C. Labour Relations Board has found online retail giant Amazon violated the province’s labour code by giving workers at most of its facilities scheduled pay increases, but leaving out unionized warehouse employees in Delta, B.C.

The board ruled that Amazon must now give the same wage increase to workers at the Delta facility, which applies retroactively to the date of the increases given to workers at its non-union sites. 

Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s western regional director, said the latest ruling in the long-running dispute with Amazon is “good news” for the roughly 800 workers whose wages had been wrongfully frozen by the company. 

The union said workers were given free Prime memberships and wage increases of between about $2 and just under $3 an hour, and the decision will likely cost Amazon more than $1 million. 

McGarrigle said the union filed an unfair labour practices complaints last September and the company fought it “every step of the way.” 

The company said in a statement that it thought that B.C. labour law “prevented us from making changes to pay for employees at (the Delta warehouse.)”

But the labour board’s decision means that the employees previously left out will now get their “updated compensation as soon as possible.” 

“We’re glad to be able to do that,” Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards said in the statement. “Taking care of our people has always been our priority, and that remains true as we continue to follow the legal process and bargain with the union in good faith.” 

McGarrigle said the company had engaged in “collective punishment” of unionized workers, and claims that it couldn’t extend the wage increase to the workers in Delta were “simply not the case.” 

“It’s just Orwellian doublespeak. It’s not fooling anyone, it’s not fooling the workers, it is not fooling the labour board,” he said. “At the end of the day, Amazon broke the law again, got caught red handed, has to pay over a million dollars and they’re going to be facing a first contract here in British Columbia in the next few weeks or months.”

It’s the second time the company’s been found in contravention of the code while fighting unionization in B.C., and McGarrigle said the union is still working toward a collective agreement and “evaluating” other alleged violations related to union drives at other company facilities. 

The labour relations board last year ruled that Amazon had been engaged in a “lengthy and pervasive anti-union campaign” and had wrongfully gone on a hiring spree to thwart union organizing efforts. 

The board found that the company’s anti-union messaging was targeted at vulnerable workers, a majority of whom had English as a second language, and workers were subjected to “a constant barrage of materials and carefully constructed anti-union messaging by Amazon.” 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2026.