Backed by Teamsters, a bipartisan group of senators is demanding that Amazon provide benefits to employees who aren’t theirs.
In a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, 22 Democrats, three Republicans and independent Bernie Sanders charged Amazon with inflicting “persistent mistreatment” on drivers who work for its independent Delivery Service Partners (DSP). Senators also took umbrage with Amazon’s refusal to bargain with DSP unions, a high-traction issue for Teamsters reps aiding DSP employee organizing efforts.
The problem? Amazon is incapable of “inflicting” anything on DSP drivers. They are not Amazon employees. Amazon neither hires nor pays nor manages them. Instead, DSPs are small, local businesses that contract to deliver Amazon packages in exchange for compensation, like FedEx and UPS deliver packages on behalf of other retailers. Just as FedEx couriers don’t work for the companies that sell the products FedEx delivers, DSP drivers don’t work for Amazon.
That’s also a problem for Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) who co-authored the letter and is insisting that Amazon “take joint responsibility” for DSP drivers by “making these drivers employees of Amazon, or (taking) direct responsibility for (their) working conditions.”
By yielding to these demands, Amazon would lose the agency to choose the terms of its delivery partnerships while also robbing DSP’s of the agency to manage their own workers and operations. All this would come at a heavy cost to Amazon and its DSP’s, which Amazon would likely be forced to scrap.
Currently, Amazon extends several benefits to DSPs and their employees that other retailers have neither the responsibility nor the overhead to provide to their partners’ staff. Delivery drivers also operate Amazon vehicles, helping Amazon move toward its climate pledge goals without forcing small businesses to shoulder the costs of outfitting their carriers with high-end electric vehicles. All the shuttles in Amazon’s fleet are equipped with the same security and maintenance technology — features that DSPs can hardly afford by themselves.
But legislators are turning the above into an indictment. According to the Senate letter, DSP use of Amazon vehicles is a sign that Amazon, not its partners, is responsible for those partners’ employees. To justify the demand that Amazon bargain with DSP employee unions, the letter also misleadingly accuses Amazon of dictating DSP drivers’ “wages, working conditions, routes, and hours.” In reality, drivers’ wages, hours, and working conditions are determined by the delivery companies that hire and manage them. And, while Amazon does help set DSP routes, this is because Amazon does so using AI technology programmed to reduce mileage and completion times, as well as accommodate employee capacity and delivery complexity.
But to hear Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien tell it, “Amazon controls every facet of the job for DSP drivers,” creating “a vast delivery network that drives down wages and erodes safety standards.”
O’Brien’s statement gives the lie to the absurdity of this latest anti-Amazon offensive. Critics are simultaneously vilifying Amazon for micromanaging DSP drivers’ daily operations and condemning Amazon for neglecting drivers’ working conditions.
Imagine Amazon didn’t outfit its DSPs with climate-friendly vehicles or avail them of its routing technology. Would detractors be happy, or would they accuse Amazon of increasing carbon emissions and driver burnout by greedily outsourcing deliveries to companies unable to afford these features?
Amazon’s opponents want it both ways. Amazon should manage the pay, benefits and working conditions of employees who aren’t theirs without depriving the companies that hire and oversee those workers of their independence.
The argument that Amazon should subsume these small businesses and annex their employees hinges on the notion that because Amazon is so powerful, it should be forced to acquire even more power at the expense of itself and its partners, whose staff will no longer function as their own. Ironically, those most outspoken in opposition to big businesses are trying to force Amazon to become even bigger.
But no one should be fooled. If Amazon suddenly starts treating DSP employees as its own, these same critics will undoubtedly brand the retailer a “delivery service monopoly.”
