Ex-Amazon Prime Now Delivery Drivers Sue Over Contractor Classification

The proposed class-action filed in the Superior Court for the State of California, County of Los Angeles names Amazon and Scoobeez, its contracted courier service, as the defendants, according to dbtechno.

While they lack the benefits of employees, Prime Now workers also don’t have much choice in how they work.

“Amazon’s mission to deliver “Now” at no additional cost to its customers is being funded by the delivery drivers”, said Beth Ross of Oakland-based Leonard Carder LLP, who represents the plaintiffs. The drivers worked for Amazon’s Irvine, California warehouse where they made same-day deliveries for Prime Now, the service Amazon began in December 2014 in New York City and has since expanded to 10 other markets in the US.

On Tuesday, four former Amazon Prime Now drivers in Southern California sued the online retail behemoth, claiming the labor model behind the service is a sham.

The independent contractor scheme is a cost-saving arrangement that already facilitates many Amazon Prime deliveries, as HuffPost detailed previous year in a story about the Amazon contractor Lasership. The named plaintiffs, four drivers from Orange County, allege they were classified as independent contractors, even though Amazon set their schedules and controlled virtually all aspects of their work.

“Not infrequently they are scheduled to work six or seven consecutive days in a week, and have been occasionally sent home without pay after reporting to the warehouse if there is not enough work”, according to the complaint. Workers sign up for shifts using a smartphone app.

Despite the drivers being paid $11 an hour, the suit alleges that many are actually receiving less than California’s minimum wage of $9 after factoring in various expenses such as gas, tolls and maintenance. The drivers must cover their own work-related expenses, including providing their own vehicles and gasoline. They claim they were denied wages and benefits because Amazon illegally classified them as independent contractors. Uber said it had appealed the decision. This case, in particular, draws parallels to a case from last month when a San Francisco federal judge approved a class-action lawsuit involving Uber drivers who claim they should be treated as employees. Earlier this year, the firm brought another suit against FedEx on behalf of its delivery drivers, a few of whom were considered independent contractors despite working conditions very similar to those described by the lawsuit against Amazon.

In the suit against Amazon, Scoobeez and ABT, the court has been asked, among other things, to order a permanent injunction prohibiting the companies from misclassifying the drivers and the class as independent contractors.