NEW NLRB RULING: AMAZON DRIVERS ARE EMPLOYEES. ENTITLED TO UNION BARGAINING
A recent NLRB ruling could have a major beneficial effect for Amazon drivers.
Millions of Americans today are ordering merchandise from Amazon, changing the manner of shopping for a large section of the American people as trucks with the bent arrow are a ubiquitous presence in virtually every neighborhood. But even as they receive their goods delivered at the doorstep in quick time, very few people pay attention to the working conditions of the folks who drive the trucks and deliver those packages.
In order to gain maximum profits from deliveries, Amazon has been resorting to a tactic now used by other companies – not treating their drivers as employees. Some companies like Uber and Lyft call their drivers individual business operatives, thus avoiding having to pay them health insurance and retirement benefits and preventing them, under current labor laws, from joining unions.
In Amazon’s case, it subcontracts deliveries to non-union companies even as it monitors, with cameras inside the trucks, the activities of the drivers and the pace of their deliveries. If Amazon feels that a driver is falling behind the dictated schedule, they report it to the subcontracting company for disciplinary actiony against the driver. Some drivers report having to work late into the night to complete their schedules. If the employees of one of those companies choose to unionize, causing an increase in delivery costs, Amazon simply will cancel its contract with the company.
But that might be about to change. The National Labor Relations Board’s regional director in Los Angeles has ruled, in a case involving a Palmdale, Cal. company, that Amazon is a joint employer of the drivers and must bargain with its drivers after they have started to join the Teamsters Union and petitioned for a union election. And across the country, a similar situation is occurring. Drivers at eight locations in New York City and four locations in Skokie, Ill. Have signed authorization cards with the Teamsters Union.
A court test is likely but if it is upheld, it will be a major step forward for the Amazon drivers and possibly for other workers who find themselves in this position.
