Good News Everyone!

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Amazon cannot hide behind contractors, and that its drivers are employees.

This is pretty much indisputable.

Amazon specifies the schedules, specifies the routes, and watches its drivers on video cameras that it installs, which would not happen if they were not the drivers' employers:

In a loss for Amazon that could force it to meet the Teamsters union at the bargaining table, a regional National Labor Relations Board director said Thursday that the company is a joint employer of some of the thousands of contractor delivery drivers who deliver its packages.

The e-commerce giant has previously argued that it should not be responsible for alleged union busting or required to bargain with driver unions, because the drivers who ferry packages to consumers’ doors in Amazon-branded vans work for third-party contractors called delivery service partners, or DSPs. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Thursday’s determination suggests that Amazon is wrong, finding that it failed to bargain in good faith after delivery drivers in Palmdale, Calif., voted to unionize in 2023, a first for the company’s delivery drivers. The regional NLRB director also found that Amazon had illegally targeted drivers in Palmdale with termination, threatened workers, and held unlawful captive audience meetings, according to labor board spokesperson Kayla Blado.

The Palmdale drivers worked for a DSP called Battle-Tested Strategies, which was terminated by Amazon as a contractor after its workers started organizing and where management voluntarily recognized the union. If Amazon, the DSP and the delivery drivers fail to reach a settlement agreement in California, the board said it will issue a complaint and schedule a hearing before an administrative law judge. Thursday’s determination by the NLRB applies only to the drivers in Palmdale in regard to their union campaign, and won’t have an immediate effect on the legal standing of Amazon drivers writ large.

It won't have an immediate effect?  Maybe, but I'd want to hear from a lawyer, and not just an assertion from a Jeff Bezos owned Washington Post reporter. 

Unfortunately, given the corrupt rat-f%$#s in the US Supreme Court, I am not sure where this will go when Amazon inevitably appeals this.