A group of 84 drivers in Palmdale, California got a big win recently when they voted to merge with Teamsters. But the real battle lies ahead. Vox report that the whole situation is much more complicated than a simple poll.
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The first problem lies in the situation of the workers themselves. Anyone think 84 people work because amazon bBut the reality is that they work “for” Amazon. Unintelligible sound? That’s because it is.
Like many other companies, Amazon has realized that It is cheaper to hire contract employees than to hire full-time employees. As a result, many Amazon drivers are actually working for other companies that are contracting with Amazon. In this case, unionized drivers are actually employed by a company called Battle Test Strategy (BTS)one last-mile logistics company. BTS recognized the alliance after the drivers negotiated an alliance contract with Teamsters.
Things get murky for Amazon request Vox By contacting BTS:
Amazon has told Vox that its contract with BTS, which supplies Amazon exclusively, was terminated “long before” the workers notified the tech giant on Monday, but the contract has not expired yet.
But Teamsters claims that drivers are still contracted to work for Amazon, and their contract runs until October, that’s when it’s automatic renewed.
Labor laws make all of this more confusing, as those laws were written before there were a lot of contract tenants. As a result, the court will have to determine the status of the employees: whether they are employed jointly by Amazon and BTS, for example, or are they only employed by BTS.
For Amazon to be a common employer, it must have a say in what drivers do, as one law professor explained. Vox.
“If Amazon can get away with ignoring employee decisions and hiding behind subcontractor relationships, then I fear we will have yet another story of the failure of American labor law. If this leads to recognition that these drivers are Amazon employees, common employees, then this could be extremely important.”
Other sections in play are California rules regarding independent contractor or the company’s employees and the elephant in the room: whether Amazon intentionally terminated the contract with BTS because the company knew that the drivers were uniting. Whether this fight gets better or worse for drivers, the importance of simply uniting as an Amazon driver may be enough to win for some.
