U.S. lawmakers are saying Amazon and CEO Andy Jassy are dodging questions related to its Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program, particularly over concerns that the e-commerce giant is allegedly mistreating its contracted delivery drivers.
In a bipartisan letter to Jassy on Thursday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and 33 other U.S. senators clamored for Amazon to provide the information initially requested in a previous letter on Jan. 10.
That letter posited 12 questions related to the program, prodding into areas like Amazon’s justification for refusing to bargain with union representatives for the drivers, and whether delivery partners can work with direct package delivery competitors. But Congress felt Amazon’s Feb. 9 response was largely steered clear of telling them anything the lawmakers didn’t already know.
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“Unfortunately, Amazon’s response to our letter follows a familiar pattern of Amazon providing evasive and non-specific answers to questions from Congress and gives little if any new information on the DSP Program. Previous inquiries—much like ours—have been met with Amazon’s refusal to share important information on the company’s operations,” the senators wrote. “As we noted in our initial letter, Amazon is facing allegations of flagrant violations of the National Labor Relations Act. As members of Congress, we have the responsibility to ensure that Amazon is working to address shortcomings in the DSP program and placing the utmost importance on workers’ rights and safety.”
The senators gave Jassy until July 5 to respond to their latest letter.
Amazon took umbrage to the letter and its allegations.
“This letter is wrong on the facts, and shows the Committee continues to be intentionally misled. We’ve been, and will continue to be transparent when it comes to the safety and health of our employees, partners, and communities,” said Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, in a statement. “As we shared in our previous response, the Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program is made up of thousands of small business owners and entrepreneurs around the world, and they receive support from Amazon to help them be successful. DSPs employ these drivers and maintain their own safety logs, providing the required information directly to OSHA. As independent businesses, DSPs are free to work for other companies, and drivers are free to choose their employers.”
One such area of concern for Congress is Amazon’s insistence that it is not a “joint employer,” a status in which two or more entities share control over a worker’s terms and conditions of employment.
The senators’ letter says the suggestion “contradicts evidence indicating its considerable control over workers’ employment conditions” following investigations by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division into Amazon delivery service partners Inpax and Colonial Logistics.
“Moreover, Amazon’s use of AI-powered surveillance cameras in delivery vans and its mandate that DSP drivers in the U.S. sign biometric consent forms under threat of job loss further demonstrate the control the company has over individual DSP drivers,” the letter wrote. “Revelations from these investigations and reporting on Amazon’s surveillance practices underscore the depth of the company’s involvement in its DSPs’ operations, challenging the company’s stance on its relationship with DSP employees.”
The letter also went after Amazon for potentially circumventing safety and reporting data required by the Department of Transportation for its vehicles, and for contradicting delivery partners and their drivers on whether they can sign non-poaching agreements. In the case of the former, the senators said that Amazon’s practice of giving their vehicles two separate DOT numbers to represent both the tech titan and the contracted delivery company could “provide opportunities to distort or otherwise mask safety data.”
Both concerns came with requests for further clarification.
The Teamsters, who recently began a formal affiliation with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) in an apparent effort to gear up for a nationwide unionization push for the company’s workers, demanded that the tech titan cooperate with the congressional inquiry.
“Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos think they can lie to the American people and break the law without consequences,” said Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien, in a statement. “This company is making billions off the backs of the hardworking men and women that drive Amazon vans, wear Amazon vests and deliver Amazon packages, yet Amazon executives still have the audacity to turn around and deny that they’re Amazon employees. No company should be above the law, period. The Teamsters continue to support Senate efforts that hold this corporate bully accountable for its dishonesty and mistreatment of its workers.”
DSP driver Jessie Moreno, who is one of dozens of former Amazon contracted delivery drivers out of Palmdale, Calif. picketing the company’s warehouses across the U.S., said “Amazon’s letter to the U.S. Senate is full of lies.”
Shortly after Moreno and 83 other drivers working for Battle-Tested Strategies, a last-mile delivery partner of Amazon, unionized with the Teamsters Local 396 branch last year, Amazon terminated their DSP contract. Amazon has long held that the dissolution of the partnership was due to poor performance.
The National Labor Relations Board hasn’t acted yet on an unfair labor practice petition submitted by the Teamsters.
