Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo
An Amazon driver makes deliveries in Wheeling, Illinois, May 16, 2024.
Amazon has been caught lying to lawmakers yet again about its labor practices, according to a bipartisan Senate letter.
Led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), the group of 31 Democrats and three Republicans sent a letter reprimanding Amazon CEO Andy Jassy for submitting what they describe as misleading and “self-contradictory” information regarding the company’s third-party contractors, known as Delivery Service Partners (DSPs), that conduct “last-mile” transporting of packages.
“Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos think they can lie to the American people and break the law without consequences,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien in support of the letter.
Amazon’s joint-employer arrangement with DSPs has come under fire for forcing lower pay and poorer working conditions onto a major segment of Amazon’s affiliated workforce, without the company being directly accountable under law. It’s also been used as a union-busting tactic, since drivers can only unionize their third-party employer, not Amazon, which gives the tech giant immense leverage. For example, when a group of Amazon DSP drivers at Battle-Tested Strategies in Palmdale, California, unionized with the Teamsters last year, Amazon simply terminated their DSP contract, which may potentially be unlawful. The National Labor Relations Board hasn’t acted yet on an unfair labor practice petition submitted by the Teamsters.
Senators sought more information from Amazon regarding these practices and sent the company a letter at the very beginning of this year. The company’s responses were not just lacking information but distorted the facts, according to Sen. Murphy’s office.
“We asked Amazon some pretty simple questions about the DSP model, but instead of providing substantive answers, the company painted a rosy picture of the program that just doesn’t add up with what drivers experience on a daily basis,” said Sen. Murphy.
First, Amazon denied culpability in any accusations of wrongdoing made by drivers, stating flat out that “Amazon is not the employer for DSP employees” and instead placing any blame squarely on the subcontractors.
The idea that DSPs are fully independent omits the documented ways that Amazon still exerts direct control over its DSPs, which have to agree to specific terms and conditions set by Amazon in order to contract with the company. The drivers are trained by Amazon employees. They wear Amazon hats, shirts, and jackets on the job. They drive in delivery vans with the Amazon logo on the side. They use proprietary Amazon devices to track and scan packages. Amazon assigns and oversees the routes that drivers take. But the pay stubs have the name of the DSP on them.
“Amazon is claiming that it doesn’t control its drivers, but we all know that’s not true,” said DSP driver Jessie Moreno, who helped organize Battle-Tested Strategies with Teamsters Local 396 in Covina, California. “Amazon needs to take responsibility for our safety and well-being while we are delivering their packages.”
Drivers spoke directly to senators about working conditions, for example, being stuck in delivery vans with no air-conditioning (something else Amazon denied in its letter). They work up to 16-hour days, and have suffered dog bites on door deliveries, just one by-product of the quotas placed on them for packages that must be delivered every day.
The idea that Delivery Service Partners are fully independent omits the documented ways that Amazon still exerts direct control over them.
As the senators’ letter points out, investigations by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division into DSPs suggest a clear joint-employer relationship. One example is that Amazon enforces worker surveillance practices, such as placing AI-powered surveillance cameras in the vans and making drivers agree to biometric consent forms. At Amazon’s directive, drivers are kept as at-will employees and can face job loss at any time. Flat delivery rates are another stipulation forced upon Amazon’s DSP contractors, which leads to lower wages for workers.
The senators asked for further clarification about the exact contract specifications with Amazon’s DSPs dictating hiring practices and on-site conditions.
Amazon also claimed that its DSPs are not required to sign no-poach agreements, despite both managers and workers saying they have been forced to. No-poach agreements are restrictive covenants where competing employers in a given labor market agree not to hire one another’s employees, locking them into their jobs even if they could find better pay with their relevant job skills somewhere else.
Based on Amazon’s answers, the company may be skirting safety and reporting data required by the Department of Transportation for its vehicles. For oversight purposes, DOT requires trucks to carry a licensing number, but Amazon claims its delivery vans have both their own DSP number and a separate Amazon number. The senators raise concerns that this may lead to confusion or even “provide opportunities to distort or otherwise mask safety data.” They request further answers clarifying which safety and other data is being submitted to which DOT licensing number.
Interestingly, though Amazon said it does not retain copies of Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports for DSP companies, it was able to give the senators precise statistics about accident and injury rates for drivers, claiming that they were below the industry average.
Three Republicans, Sens. Roger Marshall (R-KS), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Josh Hawley (R-MO), joined the 31 Democrats on the letter, which asks Amazon for a new set of answers by July 5.
This letter comes at a time when the Teamsters are making a major push to organize Amazon, and the DSPs are one of the main roadblocks to those efforts. Just this week, the Amazon Labor Union, representing workers inside the fulfillment centers, opted to join the Teamsters, pending a rank-and-file vote. The ALU won a major victory but has struggled against potentially unlawful conduct to get a first contract signed, and has had internal struggles with its leadership.
The Teamsters also helped sponsor a new piece of antitrust legislation in New York, where the company’s largest headquarters is based. The bill would expand the scope of antitrust enforcement under state laws and specifically details monopsony power over labor markets as a form of potential anti-competitive conduct. Provisions of the bill could open the door to using the law to go after a dominant company like Amazon and potentially its DSP relationship as an anti-competitive restraint of trade.
“Amazon has created thousands of delivery subcontractors so it can control small-business owners, while keeping pay low for drivers. We are going to defend our industry standards and hold Amazon accountable,” said Teamsters President O’Brien in response to the introduction of the bill.
This is not the first time that Amazon has gotten itself into trouble for misleading members of Congress. In 2021, the company lashed out at Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) after he posted on the social media service formerly known as Twitter that DSP drivers were forced to pee in bottles because of their heavy workloads and lack of breaks. Amazon mocked Pocan for believing that, adding, “If that were true, nobody would work for us.” The company later had to admit that its tweet was wrong, calling it an “own-goal.”
“We will continue to speak out when misrepresented, but we will also work hard to always be accurate,” Amazon said in an unsigned blog post. “We apologize to Representative Pocan.”
As of a year later, there was documented evidence of drivers continuing to pee in bottles, although in its letter to the Senate, Amazon claimed it had cut down on delivery route times to give drivers more breaks.
“This company is making billions off the backs of the hardworking men and women that drive Amazon vans, wear Amazon vests, and deliver Amazon packages, yet Amazon executives still have the audacity to turn around and deny that they’re Amazon employees,” said Teamsters President O’Brien. No company should be above the law, period. The Teamsters continue to support Senate efforts that hold this corporate bully accountable for its dishonesty and mistreatment of its workers.”
UPDATE: Amazon strongly disputed the Senators’ claims in a statement to the Prospect. “This letter is wrong on the facts, and shows the Committee continues to be intentionally misled,” said Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel. “We’ve been, and will continue to be transparent when it comes to the safety and health of our employees, partners, and communities. As we shared in our previous response, the Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program is made up of thousands of small business owners and entrepreneurs around the world, and they receive support from Amazon to help them be successful. DSPs employ these drivers and maintain their own safety logs, providing the required information directly to OSHA. As independent businesses, DSPs are free to work for other companies, and drivers are free to choose their employers.”
