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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
