A bunch of 84 drivers in Palmdale, California scored an enormous win lately once they voted to unionize with the Teamsters. But the actual combat lies forward. Vox stories that the entire state of affairs is far more difficult than a easy vote.
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The first downside lies with the standing of the employees themselves. Anyone would assume that the 84 folks work for Amazon, but the fact is that they work “for” Amazon. Sound complicated? That’s as a result of it’s.
Like many different firms, Amazon has realized that it’s cheaper to rent contract employees than it’s to carry on full-time staff. As a end result, many Amazon drivers are literally working for different firms which can be contracting their labor out to Amazon. In this case, the drivers who unionized are literally employed by an organization referred to as Battle Tested Strategies (BTS), a last-mile logistics firm. BTS acknowledged the union after the drivers negotiated the union contract with the Teamsters.
Things get murkier with Amazon’s claims to Vox over its contact with BTS:
Amazon has instructed Vox that its contract with BTS, which completely delivers for Amazon, was terminated “well before” employees notified the tech large Monday, however that the contract hasn’t expired but.
But the Teamsters declare that the drivers are nonetheless contracted to work for Amazon, and that their contract goes by way of October, which is when it will routinely renew.
Labor legal guidelines make all of this extra complicated, since these legal guidelines have been written earlier than the huge uptake of contract hires. As a end result, the court docket must decide the standing of the staff: in the event that they’re collectively employed by Amazon and BTS, for instance, or in the event that they’re solely employed by BTS.
For Amazon to be a joint employer, they’d must have a controlling say in what the drivers do, as a regulation professor defined to Vox.
“If Amazon is able to get away with ignoring the workers’ decision and hiding behind the subcontractor relationships, then I’m afraid we’ll have yet another story of the failure of American labor law. If this leads to a recognition that these drivers are Amazon employees, joint employees, then this could be massively important.”
Other components at play are California’s legal guidelines regarding impartial contractors or staff for the corporate in addition to the elephant within the room: whether or not Amazon purposely terminated its contract with BTS as a result of the corporate knew that the drivers have been unionizing. Whether this combat will get higher or worse for the drivers, the importance of merely unionizing as an Amazon driver could be sufficient of a win for some.
Source: jalopnik.com