A class-action lawsuit filed against Amazon on behalf of a number of contract delivery drivers has been settled for $8.2 million. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleged that quotas imposed on drivers by the retail giant left workers without rest breaks and working forced overtime without being paid for the additional time spent on the road.
The quotas alleged by Gus Ortiz and Mark Fredley, the two drivers who brought the Washington lawsuit, put the number of required deliveries per day at somewhere between 150 and 200 packages.
A contract with Amazon is a huge win for a delivery company and can lead to millions of dollars in new business. The companies, known to Amazon as DSPs or delivery service partners, can quickly become overwhelmed by Amazon’s demands and lawsuits alleging overly demanding working conditions are not new. A California case filed earlier this month resulted in a $6.4 million fine for Amazon, although the company claimed to have had no knowledge of the investigation into the DSP in question. In addition to the California and Washington cases, wage theft lawsuits have been filed against Amazon in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas.
Amazon has stated that it takes the matter of wage theft seriously, even though it is the company’s own requirements that are pushing drivers and their employers beyond their limits. “Amazon does not tolerate violations of labor laws,” the company said in a statement. “Where we find repeated violations, or an inability to correct labor violations, we terminate contracts with DSP program participants.”
The Washington settlement includes drivers who worked for eight delivery companies operating in the state from December 2014 to July 2020.