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Where Does a Tip To an Amazon Driver Go? In Some Cases, Toward the Driver's Base Pay (latimes.com)
Amazon at times dips into the tips earned by contracted delivery drivers to cover their promised pay, a Los Angeles Times review of emails and receipts reveals. From the report: Amazon guarantees third-party drivers for its Flex program a minimum of $18 to $25 per hour, but the entirety of that payment doesn't always come from the company. If Amazon's contribution doesn't reach the guaranteed wage, the e-commerce giant makes up the difference with tips from customers, according to documentation shared by five drivers. In emails to drivers, Amazon acknowledges it can use "any supplemental earnings" to meet the promised minimum should the company's own contribution fall short. "We add any supplemental earnings required to meet our commitment that delivery partners earn $18-$25 per hour," the company wrote in multiple emails reviewed by The Times. Only drivers who deliver for Amazon's grocery service or its Prime Now offering -- which brings household goods to customers in two hours or less -- can receive tips through the company's app. Amazon insists that drivers receive the entirety of their tips but declined to answer questions from The Times about whether it uses those tips to help cover the drivers' base pay.
No, they're talking about the Amazon Prime Now drivers and the Amazon Fresh drivers. Like with Uber Eats, DoorDash, InstaCart and all the rest of these services, they take the tips that customers give intending it to be on top of their pay -- and use those tips to cover their *base pay*. It's nasty Basically, let's say I tell you that you'll get $20/hr for driving deliveries for my company. Now let's say I give you 4$ per delivery. But let's say you're only able to make two deliveries during the hour you're working. That means you've actually only made $8. But what if you've made $10 in tips? Well, now you've made $18! And then they'll throw in the extra $2.
So instead of $20 plus $10 in tips -- you got $20. Which you would have gotten even without the tips (just that the company would have paid you instead of them taking it out of your tips).
Also, customers don't know about this. Customers think they're giving you a nice fat juicy tip for your hard work, but have no idea that they're actually just subsidizing the money the company would have had to pay you in the first place.