Then who or what is driving the delivery trucks that say Amazon on the side?
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Independent contractors. They're like employees in almost every way except the legal way.
I've had Amazon packages delivered by some dude wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt driving a random Toyota Corolla. It's like they use Uber for delivery.
Anything to keep the union out
They do. I have a friend that makes some side cash delivering for them in his personal vehicle.
Thats an amazon flex driver , its like a much more strict uber eats , they only hire so many flex drivers , but it works similar to uber , pick your hours , they normaly have a route between 1-3 hours , around 25-100 packages , used to be more , but they lowered it . Amazon has delivery service providers for the main vans , they are "self made companies" . Amazon provides the initial cash to start them , normaly charges them for the vans , and has nearly all controle over them . They live in a legal gray area , most have few enough "employees" to skirt large business laws .
Then it should be even easier to unionize
Can't unionize a workplace when you're the owner and only employee. That's how the law treats "independent contractors".
I kinda don't like how unions are a regulated legal thing... Why are they not just a a private club, where people collectively agree to not take shit conditions anymore? Why can't all independent contractors go on strike tomorrow?
I agree. I don't want to take power from the existing unions, but they should be able to exist in some less official capacity as well. 1st amendment says freedom of association, right?
That's what they are trying to do, and why Amazon is paying multiple firms to fuck with them over it.
Unions are part of a free labor market, and any attempt to bust them is an attempt to prevent a free economy. Funny how corporations have convinced so many that's it's a bad thing
Unions should exist, but they should be something that needs voting and shit to create. All it needs is a law that protects worker from being fired for joining a union, nothing more. Then workers can join, or not join, however they like.
Less official means less protection. Which means, you talk about organizing and, "you're fired". Just Google some of the history of unions and the reason the NLRB was created in the first place. Without government protection or mafioso strongmen, it's hard to get companies to give in and keep scabs from taking jobs if you refuse to work.
Because employers have the power. Without the legally protected status as a union you have no legal right to protest the conditions of your job. You have no right to refuse to work under dangerous conditions. And employers are free to retaliate against workers for even talking about unions or talking about reporting the dangerous conditions. How are you going to get people together who are all desperate for money and get them all to agree to go on strike and then get other people to not come in and take the jobs. One way used to be to call them scabs, make everyone else hate them through propaganda campaigns, and hire the Mafia to beat them up until they quit and no one else would take the jobs. It wasn't until the NLRA that unions were protected.
But conservatives have turned anti-worker now due to their reliance on corporate donations among other things. And they have spent decades making unions look bad, saying they're just criminal organizations, and calling them communism. So not enough people are going to feel sorry for the striking worker or hate on the scabs enough to pressure the companies to give in to demands.
Counter their bullshit with your own. "We're not a union, we're a guild."
Usually not independent contractors. Amazon has contracts with other regional companies to do local deliveries and drivers are employees of these smaller companies.
What's crazy is I hear unionization is usually more expensive to fight against, but these CEO's are essentially morally opposed to it. Every time I hear stories of these people their lives would have been so much easier and their businesses more profitable but they just cannot stand people unionizing.
Well basically it means they have to actually negotiate with their workers via unions. That's almost like work. They prefer not to have to do anything to "earn" their billions.
They also have the option of not treating them like shit. Happy workers don’t usually want to unionize.
Yeah it’s because it flies in the face of their hierarchy
That’s weirdest part, at this point the hoops Amazon has jumped through vs how profitable of a company they are - it must be cheaper for them to just let people unionise and pay them more + give better conditions?
My partner did this for a few days, he was contracted by a regional "company" that supplied delivery vans to Amazon. He had to pay for his own gas plus a fee to "rent" the van, after those things were subtracted it wasn't worth it for him to do it long term but was good in a pinch. He got paid per package delivered, and packages he was given were spread out over a couple different cities. Hourly it worked out to a lot less than minimum wage especially since we lived in a high traffic area.
It definitely made me think twice about ordering from Amazon and I boycott it as much as I can as those people are not being paid fairly AT ALL. They work hard and deserve a fair wage and more stability that would come from being an employee rather than an independent contractor
You're right to boycott Amazon. But unfortunately, other delivery companies are not paying their employees any better, at least here in Germany..
That's the whole idea behind their logistics network. They didn't hire hire logistics network, they "outsourced" it while paying for a lot of the capital costs of those companies.