Amazon is giving its subcontracted delivery drivers in the United States a new pay raise, amid growing union pressure.
Drivers who work with Amazon’s delivery service partners, or DSPs, will earn an average of nearly $22 an hour, a 7% increase from the previous average of $20.50, the company said Thursday.
The pay increase is part of a new $2.1 billion investment the Seattle-based online retailer has made in its delivery program. Amazon does not directly employ drivers but relies on thousands of third-party companies that deliver millions of packages to its customers every day.
The company also gave US drivers a pay rise last year. Last week, it also announced it would increase pay for frontline workers in the UK by 9.8% or more.
Amazon said the DSP program has created 390,000 driver jobs since 2018 and that its total investments of $12 billion since then will contribute to safety programs and provide incentives to participating companies.
U.S. labor regulators are taking a closer look at Amazon’s business model, which has created a divide between the company and the workers who drive its ubiquitous gray-blue vans.
The Teamsters and other labor groups have argued that Amazon exercises significant control over its subcontracted workforce, including determining their routes, setting delivery targets and monitoring their performance. They say the company should be classified as a joint employer under the law, which Amazon has opposed.
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However, labor regulators are increasingly siding against the company.
Last week, a National Labor Relations Board attorney in Atlanta determined that Amazon should be held jointly liable for allegedly making threats and other unlawful statements against DSP drivers seeking to unionize in the city. Meanwhile, prosecutors with the Los Angeles NLRB determined last month that Amazon was a joint employer of subcontracted drivers who delivered packages for the company in California.
If no settlement is reached in those cases, the agency could choose to file a complaint against Amazon, which would be brought before the NLRB’s administrative law system. Amazon has the option to appeal a judge’s order to the agency’s board of directors and, potentially, to a federal court.
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