Drivers for agencies contracted by the internet giant told an
undercover reporter they were expected to deliver up to 200
parcels a day.
Amazon Logistics requires agency drivers to be self-employed,
and therefore not entitled to the minimum wage or employment
rights like sick pay or holiday pay.
Tonia Novitz, professor of labour law at Bristol University,
said in her opinion drivers contracted by AHC should not be
classed as self-employed, because they do not determine their
own routes, days of work or rest periods.
In a statement Amazon said: "As independent contractors of our
delivery providers, drivers deliver at their own pace, take
breaks at their discretion, and are able to choose the
suggestion route or develop their own."
So much in the name of free market goes on. If IT industry will be allowed to progress unchecked, natural monopolies will emerge and it won't be good for consumer,smaller businesses relaying on big boys, and employees. But seems like free market cool aids is being served and drunk happily by the world.
On the contrary strong labour Laws and high productivity rate in quite a few European countries is a fact ignored conveniently by power greedy moguls. If left unchecked, they will happily move us back gloomy dawn of Industrial Age when it was ok to force workers to toil to death.
Adam smith didn't dream of monopolistic and unregulated market but only one part of his capitalism theory is cherry picked.
Unregulated capitalism is a recipe for disaster.
This seems to be a common trend among tech companies. Misclassify employees,pay them a less than is legal, design the program to force them violate a bunch of laws, all the while telling them not to violate laws. Then claim you can't control them because they are contractors. Maybe when you get caught pay a token fine admit no wrong doing and reclassify the employees or shut the thing down.
It's not just tech companies. The whole shielding responsibility via contractors is basically the name of the game for any large corporation. One quick example is chicken farming.
This article was about a lawsuit about chicken waste in 2010
The relevant quote from the article is a statement from Perdue Chicken "Perdue owns no factory farms," the company said. "Families that raise poultry for Perdue are independent farmers."
Nah, you don't see Uber or Lyft contractors having 15% to 30% of their hours driving go completely unpaid. They do mis-classify employees as contractors, but they don't go quite as far as Amazon and many other employers doing wage theft.
We should be enforcing our laws that make wage theft a felony, but at least in the US there is minimal funding for enforcement, so only small businesses are policed. Jeff Bezos can keep committing felonies and forcing those below him to do the same due to the lack of enforcement.
I am a automotive tech worker. i dont know how a lawyer determines h1b minimum wage but i get paid a lot less than Americans in my company who dont even have a masters degree. Yes its very easy to trick the laws
Are we glossing over the fact that none of these drivers work for Amazon?
> A BBC reporter got a job with AHC services
I think the real issue at play here is the use of contract workers to skirt labour laws. Perhaps governments need to stop differentiating between part time and full time workers given the assumption everyone needs to make a living wage some how, even if it is through multiple "part time" jobs.
Reading the article I understand that the agency who subcontract drivers for Amazon is making them "work illegal hours", not Amazon itself.
Now I am not saying that Amazon is not doing that, I am just saying that no evidence is presented on the fact that Amazon is aware of what is happening with the drivers.
It is likely that Amazon dictates terms that don't leave the agency another choice. I don't think the owners of the agency will make a lot of money either. Creating such an agency isn't too hard, so if AHC doesn't comply they'll find someone who opens up a new one and delivers the same price again.
In my opinion Amazon is at fault. A company has to know the contractors it works with. It's a similar argument as with child labor. Just because a subcontractor that produces for you exploits children doesn't mean that it's not your fault. Companies, especially at that size, have a duty to closely monitor their whole supply chain for violations of laws and ethics.
It's interesting how almost everyone here seems to be assuming that Amazon is at fault, and accepting the reporter's story as complete, accurate and unbiased...
They've probably seen more than one from a diverse set of sources that are all consistent about Amazon's exploitative practices on drivers and people in warehouses. Contracting people out to screw them is standard practice in the low-cost, shipping industry. On warehouse side, they force people to sign non-compete agreements in areas where the many warehouses are about the only decent-paying jobs they can get. Just between those two would make me default against Amazon on a story making them look bad as I already know they're scum.
I actually know someone who I think is an Amazon driver. I'll ask him about it. He's hesitant to talk about whoever he contracts for, though, since they'll fire him if they find out he was source of negative information. There's some kind of NDA or similar policy involved.
This kind of thing has been going on for years in one guise or another but the BBC has some axes to grind so lets make out it's something unique to amazon.
The BBC actually has some bogus self-employment issues of it's own but since this is just 'talent' using clever tax avoidance methods it's not a story.
If Amazon didn't already have such a long-standing terrible reputation about how it treats its employees (both warehouse and corporate), its business partners, (Hachette) etc. it wouldn't be the default reaction. Amazon's actions have consequences.
While you're right in quite a few areas, I have only had one package delivered by OnTrac. Literally everything else is USPS or UPS (and maybe one FedEx)
A great read indeed, but I don't think it explains anything. All it left me with were more questions: "why, oh my god, why???"
In the end, all those examples (except forkable?) are just glorified directories. They also do payment, which makes them so attractive for investors (finger in the real money stream, not just hoping for crumbs tossed to yet another ads service), but also comes with the responsibility to think about non-fixed cost, something that much of the startup bubble seems to have forgotten that it even exits. I hope that I'm the end, lean directory specialists, payment specialists and so on will keep the upper hand. Food delivery is not Amazon, where even if I order from marketplace I would love to forget that I'm not really dealing with Amazon. In food delivery, even if I do the transaction through an aggregator service, I'm all interested in the individual kitchen and would ideally about the aggregator service. Buying on Amazon marketplace I would prefer to get the goods from Amazon directly instead of some nameless seller, buying from a food aggregator I would prefer it if the transaction convenience would be available directly from the individual kitchen.
Nobody is forcing those drivers to work for Amazon. If there are people willing to work in described conditions, that should be nobody business except involved parties.
> If there are people willing to work in described conditions, that should be nobody business except involved parties.
Involved parties like the person who gets hit by a van driven by someone who hasn't had a break in the last 14 hours, and is paying more attention to the device telling him where the next delivery is than the road.
Is this news? They do this right in their hometown, wage theft by Amazon is an institution. They "ask" employees to come in an hour or two early for a shift, and stay a few hours late.
Unless the BBC is trying to organize Amazon workers to hit the streets and fight for better working conditions and/or a union, this isn't newsworthy or noteworthy.
I have never understood what people mean by "is this news?". Just because you know it, doesn't mean others do. I certainly had no idea about this before. Can we address the issue at hand instead of being condescending about it?
[+] [-] 0xmohit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drieddust|9 years ago|reply
On the contrary strong labour Laws and high productivity rate in quite a few European countries is a fact ignored conveniently by power greedy moguls. If left unchecked, they will happily move us back gloomy dawn of Industrial Age when it was ok to force workers to toil to death.
Adam smith didn't dream of monopolistic and unregulated market but only one part of his capitalism theory is cherry picked. Unregulated capitalism is a recipe for disaster.
Edit: fixed typos.
[+] [-] moyta|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debacle|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rblatz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiou|9 years ago|reply
This article was about a lawsuit about chicken waste in 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03...
The relevant quote from the article is a statement from Perdue Chicken "Perdue owns no factory farms," the company said. "Families that raise poultry for Perdue are independent farmers."
[+] [-] moyta|9 years ago|reply
We should be enforcing our laws that make wage theft a felony, but at least in the US there is minimal funding for enforcement, so only small businesses are policed. Jeff Bezos can keep committing felonies and forcing those below him to do the same due to the lack of enforcement.
[+] [-] nameisu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zombieball|9 years ago|reply
> A BBC reporter got a job with AHC services
I think the real issue at play here is the use of contract workers to skirt labour laws. Perhaps governments need to stop differentiating between part time and full time workers given the assumption everyone needs to make a living wage some how, even if it is through multiple "part time" jobs.
Just throwing out thoughts.
[+] [-] Symbiote|9 years ago|reply
The tax loss is significant, so I don't expect the situation to last very long.
[+] [-] crivabene|9 years ago|reply
Now I am not saying that Amazon is not doing that, I am just saying that no evidence is presented on the fact that Amazon is aware of what is happening with the drivers.
[+] [-] dx034|9 years ago|reply
In my opinion Amazon is at fault. A company has to know the contractors it works with. It's a similar argument as with child labor. Just because a subcontractor that produces for you exploits children doesn't mean that it's not your fault. Companies, especially at that size, have a duty to closely monitor their whole supply chain for violations of laws and ethics.
[+] [-] notyourwork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] questionr|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
even family-oriented companies like Pixar worked against their employees
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/animation-wage-fixi...
[+] [-] mindcrime|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|9 years ago|reply
I actually know someone who I think is an Amazon driver. I'll ask him about it. He's hesitant to talk about whoever he contracts for, though, since they'll fire him if they find out he was source of negative information. There's some kind of NDA or similar policy involved.
[+] [-] dazc|9 years ago|reply
The BBC actually has some bogus self-employment issues of it's own but since this is just 'talent' using clever tax avoidance methods it's not a story.
[+] [-] gdulli|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sceew|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petre|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colejohnson66|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wav-part|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anguswithgusto|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usrusr|9 years ago|reply
In the end, all those examples (except forkable?) are just glorified directories. They also do payment, which makes them so attractive for investors (finger in the real money stream, not just hoping for crumbs tossed to yet another ads service), but also comes with the responsibility to think about non-fixed cost, something that much of the startup bubble seems to have forgotten that it even exits. I hope that I'm the end, lean directory specialists, payment specialists and so on will keep the upper hand. Food delivery is not Amazon, where even if I order from marketplace I would love to forget that I'm not really dealing with Amazon. In food delivery, even if I do the transaction through an aggregator service, I'm all interested in the individual kitchen and would ideally about the aggregator service. Buying on Amazon marketplace I would prefer to get the goods from Amazon directly instead of some nameless seller, buying from a food aggregator I would prefer it if the transaction convenience would be available directly from the individual kitchen.
[+] [-] throwaway420|9 years ago|reply
Well, there's a startup for everything I suppose.
[+] [-] taurath|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] highprofit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patkai|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] elcct|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jon-wood|9 years ago|reply
Involved parties like the person who gets hit by a van driven by someone who hasn't had a break in the last 14 hours, and is paying more attention to the device telling him where the next delivery is than the road.
[+] [-] moyta|9 years ago|reply
Unless the BBC is trying to organize Amazon workers to hit the streets and fight for better working conditions and/or a union, this isn't newsworthy or noteworthy.
[+] [-] middleclick|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyromine|9 years ago|reply
I'd rather work for Microsoft or big blue than Amazon any day.
[+] [-] Chinjut|9 years ago|reply