Eight hundred warehouse workers in Delta, B.C., now have what Amazon spent years insisting they would never get: a binding union contract. An independent arbitrator set its terms Friday, the first collective agreement for Amazon workers anywhere in North America.
It is a win for workers over one of the most anti-union employers on the continent, and it reaches well beyond British Columbia. Amazon’s warehouse workforce in the United States is heavily Black in places where the fight has been hardest. In Bessemer, Alabama, where roughly three in four workers were Black in 2021, workers voted against a union that year, and the National Labor Relations Board’s regional office then ordered a new vote after finding the company interfered. Black warehouse workers on both sides of the border are watching what a union can actually win.
At the Delta site, known as YVR2, wages under the three-year agreement rise to $29 an hour by the end of the term. Severance protection grows to as much as 18 weeks. Workers with 10 years of service get an extra week of vacation, holiday shifts are scheduled by seniority, and a grocery benefit runs for the length of the contract. The agreement also creates a Women’s Advocate position and guarantees that existing benefits stay equal or better.
The workers did not get here by bargaining. They got here because Amazon would not. Unifor Local 114 was certified in July 2025, and the B.C. Labour Relations Board ordered binding first-contract arbitration on Aug. 4 after finding Amazon had run what it called a “lengthy and pervasive anti-union campaign” and had hired extra staff to obstruct organizing. An earlier board ruling found the company broke the labour code with a selective pay increase.
“Amazon told everyone a union contract would never happen, but workers proved them wrong,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne.
Amazon can still be expected to argue that the terms were imposed rather than agreed. That is true, and it is the point. A company that bargains in good faith gets a negotiated deal. One that is found to have stalled, froze pay selectively and hired extra staff to blunt a union drive gets a contract written by a stranger.
The contract runs until Nov. 13, 2029.
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