Lawsuit Alleges Amazon Tries to Skirt Overtime Pay Obligations Through Delivery Service Providers

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A proposed collective action claims Amazon delivery drivers, including those who have worked for certain contracted service providers, are owed unpaid wages for overtime hours worked in excess of 40 each week.

The lawsuit, filed against Amazon.com Services, Amazon Logistics, and Amazon.com LLC, alleges the companies, known collectively as Amazon, have contracted with third-party delivery service providers such as Commercial Express, AG Plus, JSTC, and Drop a Box (the COEI entities, who are not parties to the suit) in an attempt to shield the mega-retailer from its obligation to pay delivery drivers proper wages.

The case alleges Amazon delivery workers are paid instead a fixed amount per day regardless of how many hours they work per week. On “atypical occasions” when the COEI entities have paid additional amounts for weeks in which drivers worked more than 40 hours, the amounts paid did not meet statutory overtime requirements, the lawsuit alleges. The suit looks to represent drivers who worked as delivery associates for any of the aforementioned contractors (the COEI entities) to deliver packages for Amazon in the U.S. since the end of February 2016. 

According to the suit, Amazon delivery associates were, during the relevant time period, regularly scheduled to work five days per week in 10-hour shifts. Drivers’ shifts began when they arrived at an Amazon or off-site facility to pick up their assigned vehicle, the case relays. Drivers would then drive to a separate Amazon Delivery Station and pick up their assigned route, a “Rabbit” handheld scanning device, gas card and packages, according to the suit. The lawsuit says delivery drivers typically delivered between 200 and 300 packages per shift.

Even when workers were finished delivering packages, they were sometimes sent to “rescue” other Amazon delivery drivers by meeting them in the field and helping them deliver the rest of their packages, the case says. Upon returning to the Amazon Delivery Station, drivers were required to unload their vehicles, check in with supervisors and park their vehicles at the separate off-site location, the suit relays.

According to the case, delivery drivers’ duties often took more than 10 hours per day to complete, and the workers regularly put in more than 40 hours of work per week.

The suit alleges, however, that the COEI entities, and therefore Amazon, failed to pay drivers time-and-a-half overtime hours for the work they performed in excess of 40 hours per week. The drivers were paid instead either $13.00 per hour for each 10-hour shift or a fixed rate of $130 per day, according to the complaint. Moreover, when workers did occasionally receive purported overtime wages, the rates they were paid did not include extra compensation they received as part of their regular pay rates and thus failed to comply with federal overtime regulations.

The lawsuit goes on to claim that the COEI entities, in 2018 or early 2019, began to pay delivery drivers an hourly rate plus overtime after being directed to do so by Amazon. Despite changing their pay practices, the delivery service providers still failed to pay workers for every hour worked and include all forms of compensation as part of their regular pay rates for the purpose of calculating time-and-a-half overtime rates, the suit says.

The case claims Amazon, despite being able to track packages “to the second,” has failed to properly record delivery drivers’ hours worked and ensure they were paid in accordance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

“By failing to pay the [sic] all overtime compensation owed to Plaintiffs and other Delivery Associates, Defendants have acted willfully and with reckless disregard of clearly applicable FLSA provisions,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit looks to represent the following collective:

“All current and former Delivery Associates who were paid by Commercial Express, COEI, LLC, or any one of its subcontractors, including AG Plus Express, LLC, JSTC, LLC, and/or Drop a Box, Inc. to deliver packages for Amazon in the United States between February 28, 20161 and the last date any Delivery Associate performed work for Amazon and the COEI Entities.”

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