Online retail giant Amazon is closing all of its warehouses in Quebec and laying off hundreds of workers.

The company says it will cease operations over the next two months in seven operation sites, one fulfillment centre, two sorting centres, three delivery stations and one AMXL (extra large) delivery station that is co-located with a sorting centre.

Barbara Agrait, a spokesperson with Amazon, denies that the decision was made following the unionization of 200 employees last spring at Amazon’s DXT4 warehouse in Laval, Que...

Bobbie-Jo Vaughan, who worked for Amazon for three years, reached out to CTV News to say she she was completely shocked by the news.

When she got to work Wednesday, she saw news crews outside the DXT6 warehouse, which wasn’t unusual with the unionization efforts that were underway.

But Vaughan says as soon as she saw her coworkers' faces, she knew something was wrong.

“Nobody had any idea. We were all blindsided, nobody knew nothing. There was no like, ‘OK, this is what’s coming.' Sit down your employees, you know, have a meeting. Let them know what’s going on,” she said.

“They were saying in the news, ‘Oh, it’s not about the union.' It’s definitely about the union,” she added, pointing out that the company was scheduled to appear in court over union disputes.

Vaughan told CTV News she had just gotten promoted in October and was “so happy” to have better pay, hours, responsibility and a less physically demanding position.

“Then there goes the carpet from under me,” she said. “What am I going to do next?”

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Other employees were also shocked by the news.

“I was surprised. I did hear the news that something was going on in Laval but I wasn’t sure they were going to shut down the whole operation,” said Hardeep Saini, an Amazon employee who’s been working for the company since November.

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