Amazon Prime Now Delivery Drivers Sue Over Classification As Contractors (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: A proposed class-action suit filed by 4 delivery drivers for the app-based Amazon Prime Now service alleges that the company misclassifies its workers as contractors when the terms the drivers follow 'fit many of the hallmarks that would classify them as employees,' according to Leonard Carder, the law firm representing the drivers. Among those terms: The drivers reported to and worked exclusively out of an Amazon warehouse, were scheduled to work fixed shifts during Amazon's Prime Now service hours, and were required to wear shirts and hats bearing the Amazon Prime Now logo and carry a smartphone preloaded with the app, according to the complaint.

Comments

Re:If you don't like the job...

[superdave80]

No. There are set laws that companies are required to follow. You telling them to not take the job would be the equivalent of some guy driving his car on the sidewalk, and you advising somebody wanting to walk on that sidewalk that they should just use another sidewalk that the car isn't driving on.

Re:FedEx

[stephanruby]

Yes, the FedEx drivers sued too, and they actually won. They're no longer contractors.

What country do you live in?

[rsilvergun]

Here in America we've based our entire quality of life on a social contract between employer and employee. If that breaks down then everything goes to shit. We're also a country whose legal system operates on presidence and not logic or reason. So once Amazon gets away with shirking their social and legal obligations to employees everyone else follows suit. The real world just isn't as simple as you want it to be...

Re:What country do you live in?

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, we're getting closer to that wonderful time before we had the government looking out for the workers which started in the 40s. Just take a skim at how many incidents occurred in the past and how they diminished and changed past the 60s. Looking at that, I think we've based our entire quality of life on some tenuous regulation by the government of business, and that is being whittled away, causing more and more companies thinking they can go back to the earlier higher short term profit models pre-regulation.

Note that as automation takes over more and more low-skilled jobs, that the labor market will continue to contract. There's going to be some seriously interesting things happening over the next 30-40 years, and it won't look like anything we have today.

Re:What's next, Amazon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, these people are *defending* the contractor status by calling out Amazon for abusing the classification in order to shaft what should be employees of their rightful employee perks. A job isn't a contract job just because the company says it is. It has to meet requirements. Taking your line of reasoning to the logical conclusion, if misclassified contractors never called these companies out (and instead, just took another job), then *every* company would eventually wise up and misclassify their employees as contractors.

Re:What's next, Amazon?

[Anonymous Coward]

This ruins things for all the people that DO like and prefer the contractor paradigm.

The "contractor paradigm" entails certain freedoms that an employee does not have. The employee signs them away for certain other benefits that come with the status as employee.
Now, if you prefer to be a contractor that is fine, but in this Amazon construction you are not. You are just an employee, you signed away the freedoms, you still run the risks that come with being a contractor but you do not have the additional benefits that come with being an employee. But Amazon sticks a nice, shiny label "contractor" on it.

If you think this makes you a contractor, you are delusional. It just makes you naive and gullible.

Re:Who cares?

[kqs]

If most people could save $0.50 buying their toilet paper from known child rapists, they would.

Sociopaths usually assume that most other people are also sociopaths. This says you're wrong.

Indeed. I choose to shop at Costco rather than Sam's Club, even though Sam's Club locations are much more convenient and slightly cheaper, because Costco treats their employees well and Sam's Club doesn't. I want to live in a world where my neighbors are well paid and well treated, not one where they are poor and needy. I can't change the whole world, but I can and do vote with my wallet.

Don't know about you

[rsilvergun]

But I'm starting to see it done in fairly high skill (sys admin, programming, etc) jobs. I know it's popular to look down on blue collar folks and all, but when they're done with them they're coming for you next. The dragon can eat the hobbit in one gulp and you didn't get very far when you tripped him...