- Prosecutors from the federal labour agency have determined that Amazon was a joint employer of subcontracted drivers who delivered packages for the company in California.
- The labour group Teamsters filed several unfair labour practice charges against Amazon after it refused to negotiate a union contract with them.
OUR TAKE
Teamsters and other labour advocates have long said that Amazon has a great deal of control over its drivers. As a result, Amazon is legally obligated to bargain with drivers over their working conditions, and it is up to the business leader to provide its employees with the security they reasonably deserve while promoting Internet commerce services.
— Iydia Ding, BTW reporter
What happened
A federal labour agency prosecutor officially confirmed on Thursday that Amazon is a joint employer of subcontracted drivers who deliver packages for the company in California, refuting the online retailer’s claim that they are not its employees. The decision was made by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in Los Angeles after the agency investigated unfair labour practice charges filed against the company by the Teamsters union.
The prominent labour group represents UPS drivers and has been seeking to unionize Amazon drivers. The Teamsters and other labour advocates have long said Amazon has a great deal of control over drivers – including determining their routes, setting delivery goals and monitoring their performance – and should be classified as a joint employer.
NLRB spokeswoman Kayla Blado said the agency’s prosecutor made a “value decision” on three of the allegations, one of which was that Amazon and Battle Tested Strategies were joint employers of the company’s drivers.
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Why it’s important
Currently, more than 275,000 drivers are employed by several businesses, including Amazon, which are known as delivery service partners or DSPs. Prosecutors also found that Amazon made unlawful threats and failed to provide the union with relevant information. They further found that both employers “unlawfully failed and refused to bargain with the union over the impact of the decision to terminate” the DSP contracts, Blado said.
However prosecutors dismissed other charges against Amazon, including one alleging that the company’s decision to terminate its contract with the unionised DSPs was a retaliatory action. In a statement, Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards called the Teamsters’ claims without merit, “If the agency decides it wants to prosecute the remaining allegations, we expect them to be dismissed as well.” Meanwhile, Teamster President Sean M. O’Brien said, “Amazon drivers have taken their future into their own hands and won a monumental resolve.”
