AMAZON DELIVERY STAFF ON SLAVE £7.3bn
Forced to deliver up to 200 parcels a day in illegal 14-hour shifts Drivers should get same rights as all others
DRIVERS are being asked to deliver up to 200 parcels a day for Amazon while earning less than the minimum wage, a Sunday Mirror investigation reveals today.
I hopped in a white van to spend a day with one driver and experience firsthand the intolerable pressures they face from “impossible” schedules.
Many routinely exceed the legal maximum shift of 11 hours and finish their days dead on their feet.
Yet they have so little time for food or toilet stops they snatch hurried meals on the run and urinate into plastic bottles they keep in their vans.
They say they often break speed limits to meet targets that take no account of delays such as ice, traffic jams or road closures.
Many claim they are employed in a way that means they have no rights to holiday or sickness pay.
And some say they take home as little as £160 for a five-day week amid conditions described by one lawyer as “almost Dickensian”.
Our expose comes three weeks after a Sunday Mirror undercover probe highlighted life inside Amazon’s biggest European packing plant.
Total number of Amazon workforce in the UK Amazon’s UK tax bill last year UK sales made by Amazon last year
CAMPAIGN
Now the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency has vowed to investigate after drivers contacted them to complain about conditions.
And a legal firm which led the case against taxi giant Uber is also representing seven drivers who say agencies used by Amazon are mistreating them.
One solicitor last night branded the drivers’ plight “horrendous”.
The delivery giant, which makes £7.3billion a year, does not employ them directly but uses an army of agencies instead. These agencies recruit drivers who work via an Amazon app and follow a delivery route set by the company.
Yet many of those carrying out the deliveries are so concerned by the job they are asked to do that they are blowing the whistle on standards.
Their claims are a world away from Amazon’s slick Christmas ad campaign, in which boxes are shown zipping around a spotless warehouse to the tune of Supertramp’s hit Give a Little Bit before going off on a “magical adventure”.
A number of drivers from Prospect Commercial Ltd, a Kent-based company which operates across the UK, raised concerns about the work they do from Amazon’s Sheffield depot.
They say they earn a fixed rate of £103 a route each day, while being offered van hire and insurance costing £200 a week.
They claim they are working as long as 12 hours each day, sometimes as much as 14 – despite UK law dictating that drivers must not be on duty for more than 11 hours in any working day. One 50-year-old worker told us he took home just £160 after forking out for van costs plus £140-worth of fuel, reimbursed later at 16p per mile. Amazon claim the routes are calculated using “sophisticated software” which takes into account speed limits and traffic patterns. But agency workers denied the system allowed for traffic jams or factored in time for breaks. Steven Eckett, head of employment at solicitors Meaby and Co, said: “These workers deliver Amazon packages, collected from an Amazon depot and are given a route designed by Amazon. They are Amazon workers in all but name.
“But Amazon are trying to distance themselves from the workers to circumvent employment law. This needs to be challenged.”
The speed at which drivers must go to
WE represent drivers working for a number of different companies but their jobs are very similar – they all involve delivering parcels for Amazon.
In claims being brought by the GMB trade union for their members, we are arguing that these drivers are being wrongly denied basic employment rights, such as minimum wage or holiday pay, and that they are having their pay docked