
Amazon drivers “work illegal hours” - triplesec
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37708996
======
0xmohit
Some highlights:

    
    
      Drivers for agencies contracted by the internet giant told an
      undercover reporter they were expected to deliver up to 200
      parcels a day.
    
      Amazon Logistics requires agency drivers to be self-employed,
      and therefore not entitled to the minimum wage or employment
      rights like sick pay or holiday pay.
    
      Tonia Novitz, professor of labour law at Bristol University,
      said in her opinion drivers contracted by AHC should not be
      classed as self-employed, because they do not determine their
      own routes, days of work or rest periods.
    
      In a statement Amazon said: "As independent contractors of our
      delivery providers, drivers deliver at their own pace, take
      breaks at their discretion, and are able to choose the
      suggestion route or develop their own."
    

It seems so easy to get away with anything.

~~~
drieddust
So much in the name of free market goes on. If IT industry will be allowed to
progress unchecked, natural monopolies will emerge and it won't be good for
consumer,smaller businesses relaying on big boys, and employees. But seems
like free market cool aids is being served and drunk happily by the world.

On the contrary strong labour Laws and high productivity rate in quite a few
European countries is a fact ignored conveniently by power greedy moguls. If
left unchecked, they will happily move us back gloomy dawn of Industrial Age
when it was ok to force workers to toil to death.

Adam smith didn't dream of monopolistic and unregulated market but only one
part of his capitalism theory is cherry picked. Unregulated capitalism is a
recipe for disaster.

Edit: fixed typos.

~~~
drieddust
Edit 2: Don't understand the down votes. Some explanation will help.

~~~
noir_lord
Honestly? You are promoting a policy of the traditional left (I say
traditional left because the overton window has moved) on a forum that has a
significant number (if not outright majority) of right/libertarian leaning
people.

In theory that shouldn't get you a downvote but it does, much like reddit
where you aren't supposed to get downvoted for an on topic post but you do if
people disagree with you.

There has been a lot of talk recently of self re-enforcing echo chambers,
ironically enough on here which is one of them.

Bias exists in all communities with no exceptions as far as I can tell.

For what it's worth I was arguing that programmers need to either unionise or
have a professional chartered body (like Accountants, Lawyers and Engineers)
decades ago, the writing has been on the wall for quite a while.

Getting programmers to agree what that would look like though would be a
massive exercise in "cat hearding".

Unions aren't perfect but the abscence of Unions isn't perfect _either_ , few
things are and the question has to be "broadly, what is better for most
people" and I think that is either _really strong labour laws_ or
_unionisation_.

Historically unionisation has occurred most when there is an abscence of
strong labour laws (in the US and the UK this was certainly true, the reason a
40 hour work week is considered "standard" is because of unions (and Henry T
Ford arguably)).

~~~
moyta
Yeah, I'm finding it really quite interesting to watch my total karma vary by
5 to 10 points as people read my comments. Maybe I should graph it on munin,
would be interesting.

In regards to a union, perhaps that or a guild would be ideal, similar to the
other major unions in the US. Strong labor laws generally do not get passed in
a vacuum, often its at the behest of the union that good labor laws get passed
to protect workers.

I'm a very pro-Union person myself, I've seen & experienced what an employer
with total power and a divided workforce can do, and you are essentially
powerless. The true power of a union is the ability to organize with your
coworkers to walk out and picket your employer to fight for better working
conditions & proper pay, which is a powerful tool to level the playing field.

Otherwise, you are a replaceable cog in the machine to your employer, since
they can generally handle a fair amount of churn, just not a work stoppage.

~~~
marcosdumay
You know you got some seriously good thought when your karma starts to swing
like that. The opposite is, all of my posts with more than 30 points are
stupidly obvious stuff that nobody would miss, but were slightly funny on the
context.

~~~
moyta
Sure, what I write may be good, but it is polarizing. Its much easier to get
karma writing the obvious answer that OP may not know as compared to writing
about controversial things like worker protections & how their destruction
hurts everyone, or how Soylent is unhealthy and we know very little about
nutrition overall, let alone anywhere near enough to try to engineer a product
to replace food entirely.

------
rblatz
This seems to be a common trend among tech companies. Misclassify
employees,pay them a less than is legal, design the program to force them
violate a bunch of laws, all the while telling them not to violate laws. Then
claim you can't control them because they are contractors. Maybe when you get
caught pay a token fine admit no wrong doing and reclassify the employees or
shut the thing down.

~~~
nameisu
I am a automotive tech worker. i dont know how a lawyer determines h1b minimum
wage but i get paid a lot less than Americans in my company who dont even have
a masters degree. Yes its very easy to trick the laws

~~~
jedmeyers
Does one really have to have a masters degree to be a automotive tech? In any
case at least you can change employers with reasonable ease, not like the
workers on L1 visa who can either put up or pack the bags and go home.

~~~
nameisu
i should have said automotive engineering

------
Zombieball
Are we glossing over the fact that none of these drivers work for Amazon?

> A BBC reporter got a job with AHC services

I think the real issue at play here is the use of contract workers to skirt
labour laws. Perhaps governments need to stop differentiating between part
time and full time workers given the assumption everyone needs to make a
living wage some how, even if it is through multiple "part time" jobs.

Just throwing out thoughts.

~~~
Symbiote
The UK is already doing this, first with Uber, but also several, large, local
delivery startups.

The tax loss is significant, so I don't expect the situation to last very
long.

~~~
Zombieball
What's causing the tax loss? Businesses fleeing the country?

~~~
jon-wood
People not paying income tax and national insurance - they're classified as
contractors, so technically they're responsible for their own deductions, but
I'd be very surprised if many of them are actually paying anything.

~~~
Symbiote
That's what I was thinking of, but it's probably also that they simply aren't
paying as much in wages.

The older companies at least pay minimum wage + overtime when needed.

~~~
Zombieball
Makes a lot of sense. I didn't think about the forgone taxes. Probably quite
significant.

------
crivabene
Reading the article I understand that the agency who subcontract drivers for
Amazon is making them "work illegal hours", not Amazon itself.

Now I am not saying that Amazon is not doing that, I am just saying that no
evidence is presented on the fact that Amazon is aware of what is happening
with the drivers.

~~~
notyourwork
I agree but it wouldn't be a headline if the title did not include a well
known name like Amazon.

~~~
HarryHirsch
Market power gets you headlines, so it isn't exactly surprising that there is
overlap between abusive labour practices and making the news.

------
questionr
Engineers are not immune to such wage-fixing practices

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

even family-oriented companies like Pixar worked against their employees

[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/animation-wage-
fixi...](http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/animation-wage-fixing-
lawsuit-explainer-community-131812.html)

------
mindcrime
It's interesting how almost everyone here seems to be assuming that Amazon is
at fault, and accepting the reporter's story as complete, accurate and
unbiased...

~~~
Angostura
Do you have any reason to suggest that it isn't?

~~~
mindcrime
Yes... the simple observation that everybody has an agenda. I don't consider
any news source to be worthy of being taken at face value. I feel we should be
at least somewhat skeptical of, well, pretty much everything.

------
sceew
Big Tech needs to start receiving the same level of scrutiny Big Banks do.
Trump wants to crack down on Amazon -- a good first step.

------
petre
The next time you buy stuff with free shipping from Amazon Prime just remember
some driver gets screwed on their wage.

~~~
colejohnson66
While you're right in quite a few areas, I have only had one package delivered
by OnTrac. Literally everything else is USPS or UPS (and maybe one FedEx)

------
anguswithgusto
I read a great piece recently that explains why these big tech-cum-delivery
companies treat their drivers so poorly. Worth checking out:
[https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery-death-
star-85f9...](https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery-death-
star-85f9a121313)

~~~
usrusr
A great read indeed, but I don't think it explains anything. All it left me
with were more questions: "why, oh my god, why???"

In the end, all those examples (except forkable?) are just glorified
directories. They also do payment, which makes them so attractive for
investors (finger in the real money stream, not just hoping for crumbs tossed
to yet another ads service), but also comes with the responsibility to think
about non-fixed cost, something that much of the startup bubble seems to have
forgotten that it even exits. I hope that I'm the end, lean directory
specialists, payment specialists and so on will keep the upper hand. Food
delivery is not Amazon, where even if I order from marketplace I would love to
forget that I'm not really dealing with Amazon. In food delivery, even if I do
the transaction through an aggregator service, I'm all interested in the
individual kitchen and would ideally about the aggregator service. Buying on
Amazon marketplace I would prefer to get the goods from Amazon directly
instead of some nameless seller, buying from a food aggregator I would prefer
it if the transaction convenience would be available directly from the
individual kitchen.

------
taurath
The whole "contract only" work environment hearkens back to the 1920s and 30s.

------
highprofit
Walmart does this all the time in Asian markets.

------
patkai
Amazon is supposed to make money with innovation, not exploitation.

------
elcct
Nobody is forcing those drivers to work for Amazon. If there are people
willing to work in described conditions, that should be nobody business except
involved parties.

~~~
jon-wood
> If there are people willing to work in described conditions, that should be
> nobody business except involved parties.

Involved parties like the person who gets hit by a van driven by someone who
hasn't had a break in the last 14 hours, and is paying more attention to the
device telling him where the next delivery is than the road.

~~~
elcct
Most countries have a law regarding dangerous driving.

~~~
empath75
Why should they have laws against dangerous driving? If someone runs into
someone else, that's an issue between the two of them that should be resolved
with pistols at dawn, the way that gentlemen used to do it.

/s

~~~
wav-part
There is a difference between a law 99% consent on and a law 33%.

------
moyta
Is this news? They do this right in their hometown, wage theft by Amazon is an
institution. They "ask" employees to come in an hour or two early for a shift,
and stay a few hours late.

Unless the BBC is trying to organize Amazon workers to hit the streets and
fight for better working conditions and/or a union, this isn't newsworthy or
noteworthy.

~~~
pyromine
To be honest, how does Amazon attract talent despite a pretty universal
reputation of being a horrible place to work.

I'd rather work for Microsoft or big blue than Amazon any day.

~~~
moyta
At least here in the states, workers rights are very poor, and Amazon will
hire nearly anyone. I know that they were only offering homeless in Seattle &
Bellevue nigh shift hours as a temp employee, which meant they could not live
in a shelter or rehab since they would start work a few hours after the
curfew. Really a great helping hand Jeff, throwin' em to the wolves!

~~~
TheGrumpyBrit
That's one way to look at it, but for context, what other firms were offering
work to the homeless?

~~~
plandis
Amazon also has some undeveloped land that they have turned over to an
organization that runs homeless shelters to provide housing for the years in
between when the land is developed.

But yes. Amazon is a terrible place to work and we are all just too dumb to
quit. Oh, and we all hate homeless people, I guess.

~~~
moyta
Sure, they occasionally help out Mary's Place and the like, not disputing
that. Many other companies do so too.

From what I've heard from Amazon workers, from drinking with them on Cap Hill,
or from my own neighbors who work there, or my Cousin who was a higher up
there & left, or from my friends, on average its not a great place to work.
There _are_ good teams, but compared to what I've heard from IBM or Microsoft
employees it sounds worse than working at either of them, and on par with
working at Adobe Seattle over in Fremont.

