Earlier this year, Ross and her law firm, Leonard Carder, won a $228 million settlement against FedEx in a similar case in which California delivery drivers were labeled incorrectly and unfairly as independent contractors, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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Furthermore, the lawsuit also claims that Amazon doesn’t forward tips to drivers, which customers pay with credit cards, while it is also charged with mandating which jobs workers accept, and which routes they must take to get to their delivery locations.
Drivers for Uber, another company whose business model relies heavily upon independent contractors, was sued just last month in a class action lawsuit brought by former drivers whose allegations are very similar to those in the Amazon suit.
The lawsuit provides yet another glimpse at how Amazon keeps its prices low in part by shaving labor costs deep down in its logistics network.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court yesterday and naming Amazon and contracted courier service Scoobeez, adds that “plaintiffs cannot reject work assignments, nor can they request that their deliveries be restricted to a particular geographic area”.
“Not infrequently, they are scheduled to work six or seven consecutive days in a week”, the suit claims. Uber drivers, for example, drive whenever they’d like and don’t work whenever they don’t want to. Drivers who cover 120 miles in a day without being reimbursed at the standard per-mile rate “make $88 in pay for eight hours with $69 in expenses, and are left with “, attorney Beth Ross, who is representing the Prime Now drivers, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The workers say they were improperly classified as independent contractors instead of employees. Drivers are instructed not to deliver “two minutes early or two minutes late”, according to the complaint. The drivers are paid $11 per hour and not given an opportunity to negotiate a higher wage. “I have no way of knowing whether or not I have been paid what I am due”. Well, guess who’s paying for it? The plaintiffs are seeking back wages and other restitution.
Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman wrote in an email Tuesday that the company has “a longstanding practice of not commenting on pending litigation”.
The independent contractor scheme is a cost-saving arrangement that already facilitates many Amazon Prime deliveries, as HuffPost detailed a year ago in a story about the Amazon contractor Lasership.
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A few companies regard their workers contractors, in an attempt to avoid a few expenses, claiming that many such workers prefer as such, allowing for a more flexible schedule, which would have been impossible had they been employees.
