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 employed 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.
Anything to keep the union out
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 .
They do. I have a friend that makes some side cash delivering for them in his personal vehicle.
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.
If you’re in an environment that would retaliate against you for unionizing, you’re not “well taken care of”.
Do you really know though? The point is, if you’re well compensated, have good work-life balance, treated well, have good people around and above you, the thought of unionizing isn’t likely to be that important to you.
Yeah I do, just on the principle that an environment that retaliates against worker solidarity is an oppressive environment.
It’s similar to someone saying “can slaves be well taken care of by their owners?” Many people would say yes, but I would say no on principle. No matter how short the work day, no matter the benefits, months off every year, etc. I would say on principle that being owned means you’re not well taken care of.
The principle here being that sometimes “one” negative can be enough to mean you’re not “well-taken care of”.
That’s not an appropriate comparison.
Yeah it’s because it flies in the face of their hierarchy
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
You’re right to boycott Amazon. But unfortunately, other delivery companies are not paying their employees any better, at least here in Germany…
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.
I’ve always been a bit conflicted about unions. Those seem to be a good thing up to a point but I sometimes hear stories of them also taking it a bit too far and basically blackmailing employees to do what ever they want because otherwise they’re losing their entire work force. In the case of amazon though it seems like a union is exactly what they need. It’s a subject I need to research more. And I’m saying this as a member and beneficiary of extremely strong union.
You definitely need to research it more. Do you like overtime? Sick time? Weekends off? Vacations? Unions fought and won all of those things. You would be working like they did in the 19th century without unions and you wouldn’t have time to talk about it on Lemmy.
I don’t blame them, companies tend to push so much anti-union propaganda it gets to them eventually.
It’s always fun seeing the wins on the union calendar from a century ago. It’d be nice if they weren’t focused on just making money off us now.
Even bad unions are better than none.
Back in the day Australia had ultra stong workforce to the point of being absolute thugs. Dad said he literally got chased off a work site until he backpaid a year of union dues.
Now I’m not saying that was the right thing to do, but I do believe that every industry needs a union that is employee ran and to be able to freely talk to peers about pay and conditions.
