While workers walk the picket lines, DHL brings in scabs by the busload

Just days before the start of a federal ban on the practice, DHL Express Canada has been using replacement workers to fill the jobs of employees it has locked out — and is now asking the government to exempt the company from that impending ban.

After nearly 10 months of negotiations between DHL and Unifor, which represents over 2,000 of its employees, the company locked out workers as of midnight on June 8. The union responded hours later with a strike.

While employees have been out on the picket lines, DHL has been bringing in busloads of replacement workers, colloquially known as “scabs,” to do the work of striking workers.

Amneek Ricky Johal (pictured at top) has worked at the shipping company for over 20 years and has served on the bargaining committee for the last 15 years. He told PressProgress that DHL workers in Richmond, BC, feel disrespected watching the company bring in scab workers.

“It’s hard for a lot of these lifetime workers here to see them coming in, how easily they can replace us,” said Johal.

On day six of the strike, DHL announced it would shut down operations across Canada on Friday at midnight eastern time.

That’s when Canada’s new anti-scab legislation will take effect, making it illegal for federally-regulated employers like DHL to use replacement workers to do the work of striking or locked-out workers. The legislation, also known as Bill C-58, received unanimous support in the House of Commons last year.

After announcing plans to shut down operations, DHL sent a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Minister of Jobs and Families Patty Hajdu requesting that the company be exempt from the anti-scab legislation.

“We have witnessed similar interventions during the ongoing strike at Canada Post, and we believe such action is warranted in our case, given that we provide essential logistics services to Canadians,” wrote DHL Express Americas CEO Andrew Williams and DHL Express Canada CEO Geoff Walsh.

Johal said the company’s decision to bring in replacement workers for even just the short period between the start of the work stoppage and the ban coming into effect has threatened an already fraught relationship.

“So for those two weeks, you’re going to wreck the relationship between us by bringing these people in,” said Johal.

DHL told CTV News that temporary replacement workers are necessary to ensure that its service continues, insisting its actions leading up to June 20 are “fully compliant with current legislation.”

Charles Smith, a professor of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan who co-edits the journal Labour/Le Travail, described DHL’s use of replacement workers in the weeks leading up to the implementation of anti-scab legislation as “underhanded.”

“Throwing down the gauntlet and saying, ‘We’re going to use scabs the week before anti-scab legislation comes in’ is pretty provocative,” said Smith. “And quite frankly, it’s a slap in the face of these workers.”

The use of replacement workers has created tension on the picket lines, with workers at DHL facilities across the country blocking buses to delay the arrival of scabs.

Smith said the use of replacement workers during a lockout or strike tends to ramp up anger between workers and management.

“Historically, whenever violence escalates on picket lines, it almost always involves the usage of scabs,” explained Smith. “Bringing in scabs is just really a poison in the water in that relationship.”

Smith said this is part of the rationale for passing legislation banning replacement workers: if picket lines remain peaceful, then negotiations can continue in good faith, and when a dispute ends, workers would be more likely to trust their employer.

He said the intention is to “even the playing field, not just on the picket line, but at the bargaining table.”

Unifor represents a wide range of jobs at DHL, including call-centre workers, mechanics, warehouse workers and drivers who are employed directly by the company, as well as those who work for DHL as contracted “owner-operators.”

When workers voted 97% in favour of a strike in early May, the union described labour relations as being “at their lowest that the union has seen in over 20 years of bargaining with this employer.”

Lana Payne, president of Unifor, told PressProgress that DHL came to the bargaining table in September 2024 looking for concessions related to a number of different job types.

Payne said the company was looking to change the pay model for owner-operator drivers, which would result in some having to drive nearly 100 kilometres to start their routes before being paid. She also said DHL proposed reducing remote-work options for call-centre workers and downgrading protections for injured workers.

The company has said its latest offer includes a 15% wage increase over five years.

Johal told PressProgress that in previous years, there had been a “good dialogue” between management and the bargaining committee. This round of bargaining, however, has been discouraging.

“We were always willing to talk, and we wanted to ask for more time to get the contract done, but the lockout kind of just stopped everything in its tracks,” said Johal.

Both Payne and Smith noted that employers’ push for increasing precarity is a challenge for workers and unions across the transport sector. Smith said the dominance of companies like Amazon, and the couriers that have popped up as sub-contractors of those companies, are driving down wages and benefits.

“We know that the sector is going through a real period of flux, and I think that’s got to be an issue in every one of these bargaining rooms,” said Smith.

Payne said the union spent much of the year leading up to bargaining with DHL making sure workers understood the changing landscape of delivery and courier work.

“Obviously people are not in a mindset — particularly given this is a company that earns and profits billions of dollars a year — to give up the things that they fought for, and bargained for, over many, many years,” explained Payne.

DHL Group, which encompasses five divisions including Express, Freight and Post & Parcel Germany, reported €84 billion (about $132 billion Cdn.) in revenue in 2024, with DHL Express Americas reporting almost €6 billion (about $9.4 billion Cdn.) in revenue in the same year.

Manpreet Sandhu on the picket line in Richmond, BC, on June 12. (Photo by Emma Arkell / PressProgress)

Like many workers on the picket line in Richmond when PressProgress visited last week, Manpreet Sandhu is a long-time DHL employee. Sandhu became an owner-operator driver for DHL 10 years ago, after working as an hourly driver, a move he said is typical at the company. When he started working for DHL, he said their operations in BC’s Lower Mainland were much smaller, with only three company trucks in use.

He and his coworkers walked the picket line amongst rows of yellow and red DHL trucks, showing how the company has expanded since his first shifts at DHL.

“It’s grown. Obviously, industries, economies have changed to create that growth,” said Sandhu. “But it’s also the workers that have done the exceptional job that they’ve been doing for the last 20 years to get them to where they’re at.”

Sandhu told PressProgress that the lasting impact of the pandemic on delivery drivers is a key part of this dispute.

“Everyone here was working their ass off, like, overtime all the time. Drivers are doing over 100 deliveries a day, every day, for almost two years,” said Sandhu. “Yes, you’re making money, but so is the company. They’re making billions of dollars during that time, right?”

He said the increased workload brought about by the pandemic, combined with the runaway inflation of the last couple years, has meant that for many workers at DHL, their wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living.

“A lot of the (hourly employees) are barely making enough to cover their rent and normal expenses like car payments,” said Sandhu. “So we’re looking for a fair wage increase to kind of bring us back up to the standard living level.”

While he and his coworkers are frustrated with the approach the company has taken to negotiating this time around, Sandhu said he can sympathize with the replacement workers.

“The company didn’t even tell them the situation they’re walking into, showing up here in buses,” said Sandhu. “Some people have said, ‘If we had known, we wouldn’t have shown up. We didn’t know that the company’s on strike’.”