Activists demand firm return public money.
Activists blockaded an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in Quebec, Canada, this week in protest at the company’s decision to lay off more than 4,000 staff in the province.
The Alliance Ouvrière, or Workers Alliance, set up a picket line outside the Montreal data center, on Boulevard Lionel-Boulet, on Wednesday, and says it prevented 20 staff getting to work. The protest is not thought to have impacted operations at the data center.
More protests could be on the way as the group rallies against Amazon’s decision, announced in January, to close its seven warehouses in Quebec. This led to 2,000 staff, and more than 2,500 subcontractors, losing their jobs.
Many believe Amazon’s decision to close the warehouses was related to attempts by staff in Quebec to unionize, though the company denies this is the case.
Writing on its Facebook page, the Alliance Ouvrière said: “Activists are seeking to disrupt the normal functioning of the Varennes data center to put pressure on the company, which laid off 4,700 workers in January, to refund all public money it was granted.
“Federal and provincial governments have awarded more than CA$400 million (US$289m) in public contracts or grants to Amazon in recent years, the majority of them to AWS.”
Canadian government customers of AWS include the border services, Health Canada, the government of Ontario, Library and Archives Canada, BC Hydro, and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, among others. AWS' website states that it works with 6,500 public sector organizations in Canada.
AWS has two cloud regions in Canada - Canada West and Canada Central, the former of which launched in December 2023.
