Amazon Says It Doesn’t ‘Employ’ Drivers, But Records Show It Hired Firms to Prevent Them From Unionizing::Amazon spent $14.2 million total on anti-union consulting in 2022, filings with the Department of Labor show.
Then who or what is driving the delivery trucks that say Amazon on the side?
Independent contractors. They’re like employees in almost every way except the legal way.
I’ve had Amazon packages delivered by some dude wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt driving a random Toyota Corolla. It’s like they use Uber for delivery.
Thats an amazon flex driver , its like a much more strict uber eats , they only hire so many flex drivers , but it works similar to uber , pick your hours , they normaly have a route between 1-3 hours , around 25-100 packages , used to be more , but they lowered it . Amazon has delivery service providers for the main vans , they are “self made companies” . Amazon provides the initial cash to start them , normaly charges them for the vans , and has nearly all controle over them . They live in a legal gray area , most have few enough “employees” to skirt large business laws .
Can’t unionize a workplace when you’re the owner and only employee. That’s how the law treats “independent contractors”.
What’s crazy is I hear unionization is usually more expensive to fight against, but these CEO’s are essentially morally opposed to it. Every time I hear stories of these people their lives would have been so much easier and their businesses more profitable but they just cannot stand people unionizing.
They also have the option of not treating them like shit. Happy workers don’t usually want to unionize.
I’m a fairly happy employee and I want to unionize.
I remember working through the Great Recession and I never want to take a 7 year pay cut again.
Happy wasn’t the best word. Well taken care of employees who know their employers care don’t typically feel the need to unionize. In other words, it’s not going to be high on their priority list, nor is the risk of retaliation going to be worth it.
That’s weirdest part, at this point the hoops Amazon has jumped through vs how profitable of a company they are - it must be cheaper for them to just let people unionise and pay them more + give better conditions?
Do you want to pay people more because they’re better at their job or do you want to pay people more because they’ve been warming a chair longer than anyone else?
Or because people need more to make a living? The whole argument of “it’s a shitty job and shouldn’t be used to support you” doesn’t really work anymore.
My partner did this for a few days, he was contracted by a regional “company” that supplied delivery vans to Amazon. He had to pay for his own gas plus a fee to “rent” the van, after those things were subtracted it wasn’t worth it for him to do it long term but was good in a pinch. He got paid per package delivered, and packages he was given were spread out over a couple different cities. Hourly it worked out to a lot less than minimum wage especially since we lived in a high traffic area.
It definitely made me think twice about ordering from Amazon and I boycott it as much as I can as those people are not being paid fairly AT ALL. They work hard and deserve a fair wage and more stability that would come from being an employee rather than an independent contractor
That’s the whole idea behind their logistics network. They didn’t hire hire logistics network, they “outsourced” it while paying for a lot of the capital costs of those companies.
