#Amazon hiring drivers drivers
#Amazon hiring drivers driver

Amazon is facing similar complaints in a handful of other states. Earlier this year, the company agreed to pay $8.2 million in a class-action settlement to resolve Seattle-area DSP employees' claims of missed breaks and overtime pay without admitting wrongdoing.

#Amazon hiring drivers drivers

Labor Department, Bloomberg Law reported, citing multiple sources familiar with the process.Īmazon's labor arrangements have already been challenged in court, both by drivers seeking to hold the company responsible for unpaid wages, and by victims of collisions who charge that Amazon is responsible for their injuries. David Weil, the Obama administration's top wage regulator and the author of a landmark book on the dangers of 'fissured' work arrangements, is in line to be nominated for his former post at the U.S. Under their agreement with Amazon, DSPs are obligated to 'defend and indemnify' the company in cases involving acts by their drivers, including those involving 'death or injury' to any human being. Critics have long argued that the company's stringent delivery standards exacerbate the risk of accidents that can hurt or kill people. 'These documents provide an important signal to courts and to government agencies that this is a relationship to look at.'Īmazon is hardly the only company to use such a 'fissured' labor model: Franchised, subcontracted or ostensible contract workers staff most McDonald's restaurants, have become the majority of Google parent Alphabet's workforce, are a linchpin of FedEx's business model and powered Uber's rise from startup to corporate giant and verb.īut the labor model - Amazon's in particular - is expected to get a closer look in President Joe Biden's Washington.

'Amazon seems to want to have its cake and eat it too - to have all the control of an employment relationship, without bearing the costs,' said University of Miami law professor Andrew Elmore, who investigated employment cases as a section chief in the New York Attorney General's Office. Amazon's growing sway over its delivery partners, however, could convince courts and government agencies that the company is actually a 'joint employer' or 'vicariously liable' party. But in exerting more control over these workers, legal experts say, the company has created legal risks for itself.Īmazon has chosen not to directly employ DSP drivers, an arrangement that shields it from costs and liabilities the work incurs.

#Amazon hiring drivers driver

They also have to provide Amazon physical access to their premises and all sorts of data the retailer wants, such as geo-locations, speed and movement of drivers - information the company says it has the power to use however it wants.įor several years, Amazon has sought to bring order to its far-flung delivery operations, which were plagued by accidents, complaints about thrown packages and infamous incidents such as the time a contract driver relieved herself in a customer's driveway. The DSPs are required to adhere to Amazon's policies, which the company can unilaterally change whenever it wants, according to a recent contract also seen by Bloomberg. The document, reviewed by Bloomberg, also requires that drivers refrain from 'obscene' social-media posts, undergo training programs approved by Amazon, follow instructions from Amazon's delivery app and be drug tested whenever Amazon representatives ask. We're offering a great deal on all-access subscriptions.