Yolanda Champion had to wear a polo shirt and ball cap with the Amazon logo while delivering Amazon’s packages in a truck also bearing the company logo, but as a contractor and not an employee she and other drivers were denied meal breaks and rest periods, and worked overtime with no extra pay, she claimed in a federal lawsuit seeking class-action status.
Champion and other drivers for Amazon and its contractor NEA Delivery Services were chronically so understaffed and overburdened with required work that they couldn’t take meal or rest breaks if they wanted to finish their work on time, she alleged in the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Northern California U.S. District Court.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This news organization was unable to reach NEA for comment.
Champion worked for Amazon and NEA in California from March to August 2017, and she’s seeking to bring in as plaintiffs others who drove for the companies in the past four years. She claims the firms had full control over drivers’ workdays and supplied their trucks. Drivers had to start and finish each shift at an Amazon warehouse, the suit said.
The drivers were paid a day rate that didn’t account for overtime, and Champion for “many” weeks worked more than eight hours a day and 40 hours a week with no extra pay, she alleged. Drivers “regularly” worked 10-hour days without meal breaks, the suit claimed.
She said in the suit she was terminated when the companies “stopped scheduling her for work.”
Legal fights in California over so-called “gig economy” workers such as ride-share drivers and other freelancers led in April to a California Supreme Court ruling that came down on the side of such workers, saying they must be presumed to be employees. Lobbyists for ride-sharing firms and the California Chamber of Commerce are furiously lobbying for a delay in the imposition of the court’s order.
Although Amazon brought in $178 billion in revenue last year and its CEO Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest man worth an estimated $158 billion, the Seattle-based firm has been much criticized over the pay of its workers, including those classified as employees.
“In Arizona, new data suggests that one in three of the company’s own employees depend on SNAP (food stamps) to put food on the table,” The Intercept reported in April. “In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be around one in 10. Overall, of five states that responded to a public records request for a list of their top employers of SNAP recipients, Amazon cracked the top 20 in four.”
Amazon has fought back against such allegations. This month, The Guardian revealed that “ambassadors” for Amazon’s warehouse workforce had started posting positive comments on social media about the company, the work in “fulfillment centers” and Bezos.
Amazon admitted to the “FC Ambassadors” program, saying the ambassadors, who include the firm’s logo in their posts, had been warehouse workers who are now tweeting and posting on behalf of the firm full time, receiving the same pay and benefits that they were getting as warehouse workers.
“The most important thing is that they’ve been here long enough to honestly share the facts based on personal experience,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “It’s important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers.”
Amazon delivery contractor NEA was sued in 2017 by drivers claiming unpaid wages. The company settled that case, agreeing to pay drivers an hour’s wage for every day of they worked in weeks in which they’d worked more than 40 hours, according to court documents.