Who delivers Amazon orders? Increasingly, it’s plainclothes contractors with few labor protections, driving their own cars, competing for shifts on the company’s own Uber-like platform. Though it’s deployed in dozens of cities and associated with one of the world’s biggest companies, government agencies and customers alike are nearly oblivious to the program’s existence. 
 
 
 
 In terms of size, efficiency, and ruthlessness, Amazon has few equals. The least publicly accountable of the big tech companies—Google, Apple, and Facebook face considerably greater scrutiny—Amazon’s stock is one of the most valuable on the market, it’s among the fastest-growing companies in the United States. Atop its vast empire, CEO Jeff Bezos commands the single largest personal fortune on the planet. Estimates place Amazon as the recipient of approximately one third of all dollars spent online. Control over the manufacture, storage, sales, and shipping of an extraordinarily diverse set of products has led the company to expand into film and TV production, web hosting, publishing, groceries, fashion, space travel, wind farms, and soon, pharmaceuticals, to name just a few. It’s a new kind of company, the likes of which the American economy has never before seen and is legislatively ill-prepared for. 
 
 Ingenuity alone doesn’t account for Amazon’s dominant position. The company’s Economic Development Team works hard to secure state and local subsidies, which research from watchdog group Good Jobs First indicates surpasses $1 billion, a figure which the advocacy group’s executive director, Greg LeRoy, freely admitted to Gizmodo is far from comprehensive. Infrastructure in the company’s home base of Seattle has strained to keep pace with Amazon’s meteoric growth, and the city has experienced massive increases in housing costs. While North America’s metro areas—including Seattle—scramble to offer attractive incentives to host Bezos’s second headquarters, research indicates that when Amazon comes to town, it might be killing more jobs than it creates. 
 
 The majority of consumers, however, either don’t know or don’t care. Strip Amazon to its most familiar elements, and it’s a devilishly simple everything-store with limitless stuff-supply. You buy it. It shows up. Fast. 
 
 Demand for those blocks and the desire to finish them quickly led to what one driver described as “physical fights [...] when someone tries to jump the line.” 
 
 Near the very bottom of Amazon’s complicated machinery is a nearly invisible workforce over two years in the making tasked with getting those orders to your doorstep. It’s a network of supposedly self-employed, utterly expendable couriers enrolled in an app-based program which some believe may violate labor laws. That program is called Amazon Flex, and it accomplishes Amazon’s “last-mile” deliveries—the final journey from a local facility to the customer. 
 
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 While investigating the nature of the program, we spoke to 15 current or former independent drivers across nine states and two countries whose enrollment spanned between a few weeks and two years, as well as three individuals attached to local courier companies delivering for Amazon. Their identities have all been obscured for fear of retribution. 
 
 A great opportunity to be your own boss 
 
 To understand the issues faced by the independent contractors handling last-mile delivery for Amazon requires some knowledge of how Flex works. 
 
 When Amazon selects one of its facilities—what drivers refer to as a Fulfillment Center* (FC)— for participation in Flex, it blankets Craigslist and other sites with local ads describing Flex as “a great opportunity to be your own boss,” sometimes as many as twelve ads a day. Each FC is distinguished by three letters and a number—DLA5, for instance, refers to Riverside, California—and many of the over 50 cities Flex operates in have more than one. 
 
 An interested driver goes through a preliminary screening online and finishes their application through the app, passes a background check allegedly administered by a company called Accurate Background. Accurate Background did not respond to multiple requests for comment and Amazon declined to comment on which companies or services it uses for this purpose, but claimed the check pulls from, among other signals, court records, the sex offender registry, and data analysis from US and global organizations. One driver told Gizmodo he was approved in under four hours. Others wait over a month. According to a Flex contract furnished to Gizmodo, the only requirements to entry are modest: be 21 or older, pass Accurate Background’s vetting, own a smartphone with Flex installed, and have access to a car, bike, or public transportation. No company cars. No uniforms. Just a non-photo ID badge. 
 
 The training is similarly minimal. One driver attended an optional hour-long training at an FC. A veteran driver alleged he was asked to participate in a conference call. The consistent element reported to Gizmodo was being made to watch approximately 20 videos which fresh Flexers view from the comfort of their phones. “Watch videos of their expectations of you and their rules, agree to the rules,” a Georgia-based driver said. “That’s about it.” No drivers reported being trained on matters of workplace safety, and as one UK-based driver succinctly put it, “honestly it seems they take on anyone.” Amazon declined to describe its Flex driver training except to say that videos were among the materials used in onboarding. 
 
 Work is secured by grabbing “blocks” through the app, measured in hours, with an associated route and payout. Flex’s blocks cover multiple local arms of Amazon—including Fresh and Restaurants—but the two most common, based on individual testimony and online posts, are Logistics, which covers standard packages, and Prime Now which handles same-day purchases. Regardless, the procedure is largely the same once a driver lands a block: get in line behind the other cars at the FC, check in, receive a pre-sorted rolling cart or shelf of goods for the route, scan and pack them into the car, then follow the Flex app’s “suggested” driving directions to each stop. 
 
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 A driver sharing his experience with and tips for Flex on YouTube 
 
 Block length and package count vary considerably between Prime Now and Logistics: Prime Now blocks can be as little as two hours, while five hour blocks have reportedly been offered to Logistics drivers with larger vehicles; 15 packages for a slim Prime Now block and as many as 90 on a Logistics run. Amazon’s own Craigslist ads show compensation varies by location, but among the drivers Gizmodo spoke to, pay averaged $20.50/hr—not bad by the standards of the gig economy. And similar to Uber’s “surge pricing” in the rare event that blocks go unclaimed, Amazon will sometimes increase to incentivize drivers to accept it. Still, all but three drivers we spoke to did not consider Flex their primary means of income, and of those who did one also contracts with UberEats and Grubhub, another was seeking additional work, and the third alleged to have been deactivated by Amazon despite delivering through floodwaters in the wake of Hurricane Irma. 
 
 
 
 Arguably Amazon Flex, like Uber, is best used as supplemental income, and for many drivers it works well for that purpose. For others it’s a necessity. In major cities like New York and San Francisco—coincidentally located in the states that employ the largest numbers of couriers—Uber can be a living. Flex can’t. 
 
 A difficult road 
 
 Despite being able to fulfill hundreds of millions of orders per year, drivers report Amazon’s data at the local level can be lacking, leading to misalignments between block times and package numbers. “The block that I signed up for was four hours, but when I got to the facility they were struggling to find something for me to do, so I only ended up having three packages to deliver,” a driver told Gizmodo of a recent block picked up from a newly-opened FC. But according to a more veteran driver, Amazon’s bad bets cut both ways. “They won’t pay you for working over your allotted block time,” he told Gizmodo. “They said it evens out because when you work a three hour block and finish in two they still pay you for three, but it doesn’t even out.” Another alleged that Amazon’s systems struggle to estimate door-to-door time or handling large apartment buildings, leading to a “99% probability that you will exceed your block end time.” 
 
 
 
 Additionally, two drivers in completely different regions of the US both claimed Flexers’ hours are capped at 40 hours per week. “As [independent contractors], we should be able to work as much as we wish since we take the blocks we want to work. It used to not be this way when I first started working for them,” the San Antonio-based driver bemoaned. But lately, drivers at a number of FCs have found it harder and harder to secure enough hours for 40 hours to be a meaningful limitation. A Philadelphia-based driver told Gizmodo, “Last year when I started it was easy to secure two four hour blocks a day and I was complaining that they would put us on payroll locks so I wouldn’t exceed 40 hours a week. How times have changed!” Demand for those blocks and the desire to finish them quickly led to what one driver described as “physical fights [...] when someone tries to jump the line.” 
 
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 Amazon would not comment on whether it caps drivers’ hours, but characterized the program as a part-time opportunity. It claimed, in a statement to Gizmodo, that it “received overwhelmingly positive response[s] from drivers participating in the program.” The company also suggested that workers seeking more traditional full-time arrangements are encouraged to apply elsewhere within Amazon. 
 
 A number of drivers have alleged they’re reprimanded by FC workers if their vehicles are unable to fit all the packages for a block, and fear being “ticketed” for returning packages they weren’t able to deliver. One reported getting written up by one FC employee for following the explicit instructions of another. 
 
 While in and of themselves these incidents tend not to have serious repercussions, as little as two incidents have led to drivers being deactivated. Amazon told Gizmodo that it has performance expectations for its contractors which it expects them to meet or exceed, and sometimes those metrics are used to justify a termination. Other times, being notified your time with Amazon Flex has ended comes as a vague boilerplate email about violating the program’s terms of service. 
 
 
 
 A Flex contract provided to Gizmodo states that drivers “may provide Amazon with data about your use of such Licensed Materials, your geo-location and related tracking data, including your location, movements, speed at which you are traveling, and other personally identifiable information,” and that “ if you choose to deny Amazon access to this information, this could affect the availability and functionality of the Amazon Flex App and your participation in the Program.” Presumably, this data is used to increase the company’s own routing efficiency. While Amazon does not pay drivers for work if it exceeds a given block’s time, it’s unclear if Flex continues to track drivers while off-hours. 
 
 
 
 Lack of oversight and scarcity of work through Flex have caused cheating to proliferate. Drivers turn to auto-tap applications like FRep and Repetitouch to scoop up blocks much faster than human fingers are capable of, and once these practices become widespread at an FC, more scrupulous drivers either stoop to these methods or accept that regular hours won’t be possible. Though nearly every Flexer we contacted was familiar with the use of these types of software only one admitted to using it personally. “Most drivers at my warehouse are using some form of bot or macro to secure blocks, including myself,” he wrote. “Though Amazon recently sent out a threatening email regarding their use (threatening to terminate us for using them). That email is the main reason why I’ve cut back on my own use of them.” Video uploaded to YouTube even appears to show one such app running on an iPhone left charging inside inside a Fulfillment Center, screen blinking away at a feverish pace. Amazon told Gizmodo such software violates its Terms of Service. 
 
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 Neither FRep or Repetitouch were built specifically for Flex, according to their respective creators. “From what I heard, there are people who heavily rely on it for their income and apparently there’s a lot of competition for jobs in general. Thus, I’m not surprised that some Flex drivers try to get an edge,” Erwin Goslawski, the German student behind Reptitouch told Gizmodo. “I can imagine that this makes it rather difficult for other users to grab jobs, however, which makes it more likely that more and more users decide to use such tools.” Despite the enormous amount of access Amazon is afforded to its drivers’ phones, “botting” remains popular and poorly policed. At least one device was built specifically to increase the likeliness of landing blocks—the Flexbot. It’s creator, a former driver named Tim McDaniel who suffers from arthritis, claims to have made it “just to level the playing field to able-bodied folks,” though certainly some of the customers who have paid $130 for the contraption—a pair of Arduino-controlled mechanical fingers—do so to avoid detection by Amazon’s software. Unlike software alternatives, Amazon told Gizmodo that Flexbot does not violate its terms of service. McDaniel originally sold Flexbot 6 on Amazon, but had his account shut down after he “fell behind on customer relations.” 
 
 Add to this a general sense of disorder, from simple issues of whether or not Flexers are allowed to drive with passengers, to integral aspects of the gig like when new blocks become available. “When Flex first started all blocks were released at 10 PM. Then they changed to all blocks being released exactly 24 hours in advance. Now they have changed to completely random times,” one driver told Gizmodo. “This causes us to have to constantly use our phone to look for blocks and waste time that we are not being paid for just to find work.” 
 
 There’s no easy way for this disposable workforce to have their problems addressed. While drivers are given a support number, Flexers claim its only purpose is to assist during the course of a block—to get the door code to an apartment building, for instance. “There’s no liaison, just hot-headed warehouse managers that will terminate a driver for anything they want,” a driver reported. And from other testimony, terminations occur frequently and with little explanation. Boilerplate emails reprimanding drivers for supposedly missed packages contain little information: only the date of the infraction, but not the package or address. Whether the package was stolen or an unscrupulous customer merely took advantage of Amazon’s willingness to offer refunds, it’s the courier who takes the fall. “It’s frustrating because Amazon will always believe the customer,” a driver claimed, echoing the sentiments of many others. “Even with photo or bodycam evidence. We have no support. And one customer too many and we’ll get that termination email.” 
 
 To combat confusing rules—due both to changes in the program over time and quirks of individual FCs—drivers tend to share information over closed Facebook groups, Reddit, and gig economy forum Uberpeople. The largest of these boasts a membership of over 20,000. According to a moderator of one such community, a change in the Flex program takes place approximately every six weeks, sometimes buried inside a Terms of Service update. Many of the posts in these digital break rooms can be summarized as: Here’s what happened to me. Is this normal? But no matter how experienced, the advice of other, equally powerless people can only go so far in certain situations. 
 
 
 
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 So where can a driver go to resolve an issue or dispute their termination? That leaves one final option: Flex’s reviled support email line. 
 
 “It’s as if they scan it for keywords and then have a copy-and-paste type response to everything,” a Detroit-based driver told Gizmodo. “Literally I got the same email twice.” Unfortunately this appears to be a common occurrence. 
 
 Flex, as part of a pilot program Amazon is rumored to be using to take on UPS, Fedex and others, is a constantly shifting set of systems with a number of redundancies. Besides drivers, some cities also employ motor scooter couriers and—in Manhattan at least—“Johnny walkers” who gather around delivery trucks and roll their packages to buildings on foot. But by far the biggest threat to self-employed Flexers (and vice versa) are “white vans”—third-party local couriers Amazon also contracts to do last-mile work. 
 
 Joining the fleet 
 
 The arrangement is virtually the same as Flex, only scaled up to accommodate bigger vans and larger package counts—as many as 270 per run, according to one source—and with pay going to the company to distribute as it sees fit, rather than to individual drivers. The major draw for Amazon—though it declined to comment on most aspects of these local business arrangements—appears to be the ability to count on a reliable number of couriers all capable of hauling an equally reliable volume (300 cubic feet or large is the required van size) of parcels. 
 
 Amazon considers these companies, just like individual Flexers, to be contractors, though drivers still have to run Amazon’s software while working, and still have to pass a check from Accurate Background. “We have to background check the guys [that deliver Amazon packages]. We have to use their background check company. They won’t even tell us what the criteria is,” a California-based courier business owner said with clear frustration. A dispatcher for another last-mile courier claimed that applicants who don’t pass Accurate Background’s vetting simply aren’t hired by the company he works for. UPS spokesman Dan McMackin told Gizmodo that Amazon is not a threat to UPS—whose drivers are both full employees and the single largest contingent of long-lived Teamsters labor union—because “ecommerce is bigger than one customer.” In his opinion, good courier work requires a skilled, consistent workforce, and retaining that pool of labor means providing solidly middle-class wages and benefits. However much he claims to dislike doing business with large, often pushy customers, the California courier said he finally agreed work with a company like Amazon because, “the writing’s on the wall that Amazon’s gonna take over the whole delivery industry in the next ten years.” 
 
 “The writing’s on the wall that Amazon’s gonna take over the whole delivery industry in the next ten years.” 
 
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 Worryingly, courier company owners allege their drivers can be individually deactivated from using the Flex app. “They tier people out, it’s called, because you get a tier one offense, you cannot log into the app anymore,” the California boss claimed. “Amazon does fire people.” But deactivation is only the most extreme action within a larger scheme of control. “Fulfillment center managers control [...] what drivers can come, what can’t,” a New Jersey courier company owner told Gizmodo. “If you make a mistake in there, if you have a mouth on you and use curse words, they don’t allow that whatsoever, and they’ll take you out in a heartbeat. They’ll even take out the whole company if they want to.” 
 
 That capriciousness, coupled with having significantly more at stake, also explains why, of the many dozens of courier companies advertising for Amazon route drivers, only three spoke to Gizmodo about working with Amazon. One company owner, who did not agree to answer questions about his relationship with Amazon, wrote back in an email that “anything Amazon related is really not up to me to accept on interview or not.” Asked if such companies are under non-disclosure agreement, Amazon declined to comment. 
 
 Worse still, Amazon has a history of contracting courier services that themselves subcontract their drivers, which led to it being named in lawsuits in 2015 (against Scoobeez) and 2016 (against Courier Logistics Services.) The complaints in these suits included failure to pay minimum wage, failure to compensate overtime, failure to provide meal periods, employee misclassification, and violations of the unfair competition law. Still, at least one recent hiring ad on Craigslist from a courier company explicitly sought independent contractors to run Amazon routes. 
 
 Technically, all drivers in these arrangements are required by Amazon to be full employees of those local delivery outlets, not contractors like individual Flexers. Yet Amazon’s background check policy insinuates itself into the hiring decisions these companies are able to make—especially if Amazon is provides the lion’s share of work for these local outfits—and testimony around pushy FC workers and app deactivations suggests Amazon also wields the power to functionally fire drivers as well. Amazon declined to comment specifically on any facet of its arrangement with third-party couriers, except to confirm that they are subject to the same background checks. 
 
 Over the limit 
 
 “I do think that Amazon is breaking the law. I think it’s breaking the law in a pretty widespread way,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney well known within courier circles for representing drivers from Lyft, Grubhub, Uber, and more recently few Amazon Flex, told Gizmodo. Though Amazon would likely disagree, the legality of the relatively new mass-contractor model remains an open question. 
 
 “I do think that Amazon is breaking the law. I think it’s breaking the law in a pretty widespread way.” 
 
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 The way Liss-Riordan sees it, the issue at hand is labor misclassification: Amazon and similar companies pay drivers to do the work of employees, but treat them as independent contractors, denying them basic amenities like health care, benefits, and workers’ compensation in the event of an on-the-job injury—something which two of the drivers we spoke to reported experiencing. As Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel and program director for the National Employment Law Project, explained, the determination of whether a worker is doing the job of a contractor or employee comes down to a few key factors: among them, the right to control how the work is done, its permanence, the level of specialization required, and how integrated it is into the business paying for it. 
 
 Some of the drivers we spoke to had run deliveries for Flex for up to two years, which suggests continuing rather than gig-based work. And where integration is concerned, the Prime Now arm of Flex is particularly suspect, in Ruckelshaus’s opinion. “If Amazon’s promoting one-day delivery, that’s likely to be found to be integrated to Amazon’s overall products or services that it’s providing to customers,” she said. 
 
 Most damning though is Amazon’s apparent level of micromanagement. “If something’s relatively low-skill, you don’t have to show that the company, like an Amazon, told them exactly ‘take a left here, take a right there, drop this package off first,’ they mostly just want you to go from A to B, get this thing done, they don’t tell you how to get the thing done,” Ruckelshaus said. “So if Amazon is actually taking that amount of detailed oversight and control, that’s very powerful, strong evidence that it has the right to control because it’s actually exercising control over pretty minute details of the job.” 
 
 If Amazon has been engaging in misclassification on a massive scale, why haven’t there been lawsuits? Beyond the expense of retaining legal representation, Flex’s terms of service also include an arbitration agreement which waives drivers’ rights to a class-action lawsuit against Amazon. It’s a common practice for comparable gigs, affecting some 25 million contracts. And though the version of the Flex contract made available to Gizmodo gives drivers the ability to opt out within two weeks of signing, it seems few do. Individual drivers looking to escalate an issue can’t bring it to court, keeping whatever ruling might have resulted from becoming valuable case law. 
 
 “These companies have been very effective at wielding their arbitration clauses,” Liss-Riordan said. The result, in Ruckelshaus’s view, is that “the company doesn’t feel the heat because it doesn’t have to pay off all of its drivers, it only has to pay off the ones that bring their claims, and then nobody else knows—Did that guy win? What happened? It’s harder to change the practices across an entire company when it’s individual private arbitration.” While drivers are free to opt in to Liss-Riordan’s current Flex suit, the class-action gag keeps her from sending notice to driver who might benefit from joining. 
 
 Compounding the difficulty of driver going up against a powerful and well-insulated company, of the governmental and regulatory regulatory agencies Gizmodo reached out to for comment on Amazon’s business practices, few seem to have ever heard of the Flex program or have an official stance on it. Even the National Labor Relations Board, which by its own description “acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices,” declined to comment on Flex, and further declined to comment on whether or not Flex even fell under the purview of the agency. Mounting regulatory pressure against Uber may have led Instacart to start walking back it’s contractor model, but no such outrage is directed at Flex, one imagines, because so few people even know it exists. 
 
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 Both lawyers seemed most troubled to see these practices employed by a company of the size and wealth of Amazon. “It’s too bad that Amazon is continuing to pursue these structures, because it doesn’t have to. All it has to do is pay the minimum wage, that’s all,” Ruckelshaus said, sounding defeated. “It seems like they’re jumping through a lot of hoops to avoid being an employer for not really a good economic reason.” Similarly, Liss-Riordan, pointing to structural legal issues, said that “difficulties in enforcement are leading a company like Amazon, which is a major player and obviously could afford to do it right, to lead it to shift to a system where more and more of its drivers don’t have the benefits of employment.” 
 
 “It’s too bad that Amazon is continuing to pursue these structures, because it doesn’t have to.” 
 
 Flex is indicative of two alarming trends: the unwillingness of legislators to curb harmful practices of tech behemoths run amok, and a shift towards less protected, more precarious opportunities in a stagnant job market. Under the current administration, it’s unlikely either will receive the attention it deserves. There is a glimmer of hope for Liss-Riordan and the scores of Flexers she hopes to help though. On October 2nd, the US Supreme Court’s new term began. Among its cases is one which will determine the legality of arbitration clauses like the one Amazon uses to shield itself against the drivers it refuses to acknowledge as employees. 
 
 The constantly shifting, secretive nature of Amazon makes it difficult to report its activities to the public. If you have information about company, we’d like to hear from you. Reach out to the author via email with tips or to request secure communications through Signal, Wickr, or SecureDrop. ||||| In response to this story, Amazon said, "While it is impossible to characterize a network of thousands of delivery drivers based on anecdotes, we do recognize small businesses sometimes need more support when scaling fast." 
 
 Many of these drivers also described a physically demanding work environment in which, under strict time constraints, they felt pressured to drive at dangerously high speeds, blow stop signs, and urinate in bottles on their trucks. 
 
 Some drivers described a variety of alleged abuses, including lack of overtime pay, missing wages, intimidation, and favoritism. 
 
 Zachariah Vargas was six hours into his shift delivering packages for Amazon. 
 
 He was about to drop off a package when he accidentally slammed the door of his truck on his hand. The door clicked shut, trapping his middle and ring fingers. 
 
 Once he freed his fingers, the blood began to pour. Both of Vargas' arms started to shake involuntarily. The lacerations were deep. Vargas thought he glimpsed bone when he wiped away the blood. 
 
 Panicked, Vargas called his dispatch supervisor, who was working at a nearby Amazon facility. 
 
 He said he received no sympathy. 
 
 "The first thing they asked was, 'How many packages do you have left?'" he told Business Insider. 
 
 Vargas had dozens remaining. Delivering them all would take several hours. Still, his supervisor advised him to drop them all off before returning to the station or seeking care. 
 
 Vargas ignored his boss and headed back. He was worried, and there was no first-aid kit in the truck. 
 
 When he arrived at the station he said he was mocked. 
 
 "My dispatcher kept saying, 'Are you dying right now? Girls have come back with worse wounds than you,'" Vargas said. 
 
 The same manager ordered Vargas to unload his truck and pointed toward an Amazon official at the warehouse and told him: "Amazon is watching you. They don't like when undelivered packages come back." 
 
 Vargas also claims another supervisor told him he should have knocked on a customer's door to ask for a Band-Aid, then continued on his route. 
 
 The supervisors told him to go to the hospital to prove he was injured, even though he did not have health insurance at the time, Vargas said. 
 
 "At that moment I realized, 'I don't know if I want to continue working for this company if they don't even care what happens to me,'" he added. "It was a wake-up call." 
 
 Vargas' experience may be extreme. But he isn't the only driver delivering packages for Amazon who has found the job alarmingly tough. 
 
 With Amazon's rapid growth, the environment for drivers is getting only more demanding. 
 
 Amazon has more than 100 million paying Prime members. The membership, which costs $119 annually, promises free two-day shipping on millions of items and same-day delivery through Prime Now. 
 
 The company delivered over 5 billion Prime packages worldwide in 2017. To ensure that millions of packages are delivered each day, Amazon employs some drivers through its Amazon Flex program. The Flex drivers work directly with Amazon. They make their own hours and are their own bosses. 
 
 Amazon also uses FedEx, UPS, and USPS, as well as third-party courier companies that it calls delivery service partners, or DSPs, which manage their own fleets. 
 
 Delivery service partners are companies that employ and manage many drivers, like Vargas, who work to fulfill deliveries for partners such as Amazon. Vargas did not wish to name his employer. 
 
 For Amazon, paying third-party companies to deliver packages is a cost-effective alternative to providing full employment. And the speed of two-day shipping is great for consumers. But delivering that many packages isn't easy, and the job is riddled with problems, according to interviews with 31 current or recently employed Amazon-affiliated delivery workers with experience across 14 third-party companies spanning 13 cities. 
 
 In interviews over the course of eight months, drivers described a variety of alleged abuses, including lack of overtime pay, missing wages, intimidation, and favoritism. Drivers also described a physically demanding work environment in which, under strict time constraints, they felt pressured to drive at dangerously high speeds, blow stop signs, and skip meal and bathroom breaks. 
 
 Many of their accounts were supported by text messages, photographs, internal emails, legal filings, and peers. 
 
 In response to this story, Amazon said that some challenges exist within its wide network of delivery providers and that it's working to improve the system. 
 
 "While it is impossible to characterize a network of thousands of delivery drivers based on anecdotes, we do recognize small businesses sometimes need more support when scaling fast," Amazon spokeswoman Amanda Ip said in a statement to Business Insider. "We have worked with our partners, listened to their needs, and have implemented new programs to ensure small delivery businesses serving Amazon customers have the tools they need to deliver a great customer and employee experience." 
 
 Some drivers said they felt Amazon-affiliated courier companies were to blame for many of the problems they described. 
 
 Others, including several labor experts, said they felt blame should be placed with Amazon, adding that the company was pressuring courier companies to deliver more, faster. They said Amazon was profiting off cheap labor that it doesn't have to protect because it's outsourcing the job to companies that it doesn't adequately supervise. 
 
 "Amazon is doing whatever they want," Edgar Cerda, a driver who's worked for two courier companies delivering packages for Amazon, told Business Insider. "And we're paying the price." 
 
 It doesn't take much to become an applicant for Amazon's courier business 
 
 Amazon drivers arrive for work at a delivery station in Richmond, Virginia. Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Amazon solicits prospective courier companies through an online application process. It doesn't take much more than cargo vans and insurance to apply. 
 
 "Start your business with as little as $10,000," Amazon advertises on its website. "Logistics experience not required." 
 
 The whole process to become a courier for Amazon can take as little as four weeks or as long as six months. 
 
 Once Amazon accepts a courier into its system, it provides a set number of daily delivery routes. Each route, which is assigned to a single driver, has a daily volume of between 250 and 300 packages, on average. Drivers said that number could spike as high as 400 during peak holiday periods. 
 
 Amazon also provides the electronic devices — referred to internally as "rabbits" — that drivers use for scanning each package and route navigation. 
 
 Courier companies then handle the costs of running the business, including payroll, taxes, insurance, vans, and gas. 
 
 In a recent push to add more couriers to its delivery network, Amazon started offering incentives, such as special rates on vans and employee insurance programs, to anyone willing to start a delivery business. The company announced last week that it was ordering 20,000 Mercedes-Benz vans for the new incentive program. 
 
 "Our recently launched Delivery Service Partner program offers a number of new features including customized branded vehicles for delivery, preventative vehicle maintenance services, low-cost vehicle and employee insurance plans, and a payroll system customized for their business," Amazon said. "We are simultaneously recruiting new businesses into this program and transitioning our existing delivery partners into this new program." 
 
 Business Insider 
 
 Amazon's courier companies operate out of delivery stations, which are typically located near Amazon fulfillment and sortation facilities, and often handle about 30 delivery routes a day at each location. 
 
 Some courier companies are small and operate out of a single region; others have hundreds of employees working out of multiple delivery stations across the US. 
 
 Amazon said many drivers who deliver packages for the company are paid competitively and have access to comprehensive benefits. 
 
 "Hundreds of delivery associates are working full-time jobs that offer competitive pay and comprehensive benefits through their delivery service provider," Amazon's Ip said. 
 
 Courier companies pay drivers either a flat rate of between $125 and $150 a day or an hourly rate of between $13 and $15 an hour, according to drivers. 
 
 That rate is roughly in line with other delivery service jobs. The median hourly wage for delivery service drivers is $15.12, or $31,450 annually, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
 
 Jim Blanchard, a representative for Courier Distribution Systems and DeliverOL, said that jobs delivering packages for Amazon are pulling poor Americans out of extreme poverty and enabling them to buy houses and cars. 
 
 "We're taking unskilled labor that is traditionally earning an income that puts them far below the poverty line," he told Business Insider. "This is truly how to bridge the gap between no shot and that next level of life." 
 
 Jermaine Lakota Johnson, a former driver for Courier Distribution Systems, in Everett, Massachusetts, said he was paid about $740 a week, or about $38,000 annually before taxes. 
 
 "It was a great job, one of my favorites actually," Johnson said of his Amazon delivery days. 
 
 In addition to the decent pay, he said he had flexible hours and could take as many breaks as he needed. If he finished his deliveries by 2 p.m., he'd have the rest of the day off. 
 
 Other drivers agreed that the pay they were promised was enticing. But many found their employers failed to follow through on their promises. 
 
 Allegations of broken promises, intimidation, and retaliation 
 
 A driver delivering Amazon packages. (The drivers in this story are not employed by Penske). Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Several people described instances when they felt their bosses at Amazon-affiliated courier companies took advantage of them. 
 
 Four drivers across three companies said their employers misrepresented the job by promising health benefits without following through. One worker said that when he started his job, his employer promised that he would get health benefits within 90 days of employment. He said he was fired within days of qualifying. 
 
 Eight workers across four companies said drivers were denied overtime pay, despite working well over 40 hours a week. Thirteen workers across five companies complained about wages missing from paychecks. 
 
 "The culture is predatory," said Ku Irvin, who started working as a driver for DeliverOL, in Aurora, Colorado, in November 2016. "It's a revolving door. A lot of promises are made that are not kept." 
 
 Nine months later, Irvin became a manager but said he couldn't stomach it. "Once I got behind the desk, I saw what was going on and it was sickening to me," he said. 
 
 A few drivers told Business Insider that they felt powerless to address problems because they feared retaliation. 
 
 They described the measures they feared as firings, withholding of wages, and denial of work — meaning drivers could be sent home without a delivery route on days they were scheduled. 
 
 "If I didn't come in on my day off, they threatened to fire me," Justin Waring, a former driver for Courier Distribution Systems, in Lisle, Illinois, told Business Insider. 
 
 A supervisor at a New Jersey-based logistics company, Prime EFS, sent a threatening text to drivers in late April: 
 
 "Tomorrow is Saturday. The Weekend. Where everyone wants to call out," read the message, which was viewed by Business Insider. "You're scheduled for tomorrow so I expect everyone confirmed and on time tomorrow. Any callouts I will make sure you do not receive a route for a week." Prime EFS did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story. 
 
 One Richmond, Virginia-based driver at another Amazon-affiliated courier company claimed he was sent home on a scheduled workday as punishment for arriving one minute late. 
 
 "That's their way of disciplining you," said the driver, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting fired. 
 
 Christian Loera, who worked for Courier Distribution Systems, in Lisle, Illinois, for two years, said that when he asked to cut back on his number of workdays because of scheduling conflicts, his supervisors then gave him the heaviest routes with the highest number of packages. 
 
 "They would give me the hardest, longest routes they could," Loera said. 
 
 He also alleged that, later on, one of his managers offered him a schedule with Saturdays and Sundays off if he paid the manager $500 to $600 in cash. 
 
 Loera said he turned down the offer. He said he was later fired. He believes it was because he did not comply with a request to report to work on his day off. 
 
 Drivers interviewed by Business Insider said they typically deliver between 250 and 300 packages daily, though volumes can sometimes spike as high as 400 packages. Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Loera left the company in May 2017 and sent an email, which was viewed by Business Insider, to the company's human resources department detailing some of the problems he said he encountered on the job. His manager has since parted ways with the company. 
 
 "We had issues in regards to [the manager's] leadership and we did not support some of the things he was doing," Blanchard, the representative of Courier Distribution Systems and DeliverOL, said. Further details on the matter were unavailable and an investigation was still ongoing, he said. 
 
 Eight drivers across five companies accused their managers of favoritism. 
 
 "If they like you, you'll get lucky. If they don't, they will make your life miserable," Hector Rivera, a former driver for New York-based courier company Thruway Direct, said. "In the end, they know people need jobs. So if you don't like it and you leave, they will just replace you with someone else." 
 
 Thruway Direct did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story. A person reached by phone at one point said, "We don't have any interest in that — thank you very much," and hung up. 
 
 Shanaea Burnett and Naimah Turner, two former employees of Prime EFS, said one of their managers repeatedly assigned better trucks and routes to certain drivers. 
 
 Burnett said this manager regularly gave her trucks with faulty brakes, broken mirrors, and tires with poor traction. When she pushed back, she said the manager accused her of "always complaining" and told her to "get out of his face." 
 
 Burnett and Turner, in separate interviews, said this same manager routinely denied them work and sent them home without route assignments. Turner filed a complaint with the New Jersey labor department for missing wages, and ultimately left the company for another job. The claim was unresolved as of May. 
 
 Burnett left around the same time. 
 
 "Enough was enough," she said. "He was mistreating me." 
 
 Amazon said workers experiencing any of the problems described to Business Insider should report them to Amazon management directly so the company can conduct an investigation. 
 
 Missing wages and bizarre pay practices 
 
 Some delivery drivers have complained about problems with their paychecks. Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Thirteen workers across five companies complained about problems with their paychecks. 
 
 Irvin, the Colorado-based driver, described recurring issues with paychecks at DeliverOL. Managers would frequently forget to pay overtime or fail to add a new driver to the system so that the person wouldn't receive a paycheck, he said. The problems would get fixed, but it was up to drivers to spot them. 
 
 "There was always some excuse," Irvin said. "No one makes that many mistakes that often." 
 
 Blanchard said problems with paychecks are rare and those that arise are fixed within days. 
 
 "Do errors happen? Sure they do," he said. "Do they not get corrected? Never." Blanchard said he typically cuts about two or three checks for errors weekly, and the company employs about 1,000 workers. 
 
 A manager at a Texas-based courier company said his company didn't pay drivers overtime for at least a year. That's changing now, since courier companies have started getting hit with lawsuits, he said. 
 
 Drivers across the US have brought up similar complaints at some other Amazon-affiliated courier companies, with allegations such as missing wages and failure to provide breaks, in five lawsuits filed against Amazon and six contracted delivery companies, in Illinois, California, Arizona, and Washington over the past three years. Three of the cases have been settled. Amazon did not admit fault in any of the cases. 
 
 One of the companies that drivers complained the most about may be Prime EFS, a New Jersey-based courier company that generated more than $7 million in revenues last year, and where employees described a litany of bizarre pay practices. 
 
 Prime EFS is run by Frank Mazzola, who was barred from the securities industry in 2014 after accepting a fine to settle an SEC fraud case. Mazzola and his uncle, John Bivona, were ordered to pay nearly $45 million in February for their alleged involvement in a separate fraud case. 
 
 Business Insider 
 
 "Frank didn't always give me pay stubs and money never added up," one former Prime EFS employee, Josh Salgado, said. "After I confronted him about the money missing … the next day he called me and he said: 'Don't come into work. We're going to let you go.'" 
 
 A former Prime EFS manager, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said Mazzola did not pay drivers on time and "if somebody messes up or anything happens to a van, or a guy didn't show up to work … he wouldn't pay him for a week." 
 
 Business Insider initially reached out to Mazzola in May through Prime EFS's email contact form and by a phone number for him listed on Prime EFS's website. Someone called back from that number and asked, "What business is this?" and then hung up. His name and number have since been removed from Prime EFS's website. 
 
 When reached by phone twice within the last week, Mazzola answered and confirmed his identity, then hung up. Prime EFS is facing ongoing investigations by the US and New Jersey labor departments. 
 
 Amazon said it takes reports of misconduct seriously and regularly audits contracted courier companies. It conducted an audit of Prime EFS in late 2017 and found that the company complied with all its specifications. 
 
 "Amazon requires all delivery service providers to abide by applicable laws and Amazon's Supplier Code of Conduct, which focuses on fair wages, appropriate working hours and compensation," the company said. "We investigate any claim that a provider isn't complying." It added that courier employees can contact Amazon management directly or use its chat support line to report problems. 
 
 Drivers urinate in their vans so that they can keep up with ever-increasing package volumes 
 
 Drivers said they speed and cut corners to meet Amazon's demands for fast package delivery. (The drivers in this story are not employed by Penske). Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Amazon factors 30-minute lunch breaks and two additional 15-minute breaks into daily routes for drivers. But with package volumes ballooning, drivers said that stopping to eat or use the restroom would make them fall behind on delivery schedules, which could jeopardize their jobs. 
 
 "Packages are [jammed] so tightly into your van that you can't even see. You have packages in the front seat and you have packages sliding from the back to the front, smacking you in the face," Rivera, the former Thruway Direct driver, said. 
 
 A couple of years ago, drivers typically delivered between 80 and 150 packages on any given day for Amazon. Now volumes regularly exceed 250 parcels daily, drivers said. 
 
 "The work is brutal," said a manager of a courier company based in New Jersey, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. "Drivers have to pee in bottles in their vans all the time." 
 
 Ann Chval said female drivers at Tennessee-based JARS TD, where she briefly worked as a driver in 2017, brought buckets and baby wipes to work so they could relieve themselves inside their trucks. Once, a male driver urinated on a customer's lawn in front of her, she said. 
 
 Marvic Trejo, a driver who has worked for two courier companies delivering packages for Amazon, said he's found bottles of urine in delivery vans and at the Amazon facilities where he loads packages. 
 
 "It's disgusting," he said. "There's no place in society to have people pissing in a bottle. The worst part about it is people don't even throw it away. They just throw it on the ground." 
 
 He recalled one day last summer when a female worker refused to deliver her route because the air-conditioning in her U-Haul was broken on a sweltering day. 
 
 Trejo said he would cover for her. When he climbed inside the van, he smelled an overpowering stench and spotted bottles of urine in the passenger side, baking in the heat. 
 
 "It was one of the most disgusting experiences I have had to go through," he said. 
 
 Amazon said claims of drivers urinating in bottles did not reflect the standards it had for its delivery-service providers. 
 
 Speeding and blowing stop signs to meet deadlines 
 
 In addition to these bathroom hacks, Amazon-affiliated drivers described other disturbing ways they've cut corners to meet delivery timetables. 
 
 Eight drivers said they drove over the speed limit regularly. Several blamed Amazon, saying the routes that it maps don't factor in delays related to weather or traffic. 
 
 One UK-based driver flipped his delivery truck while speeding. He blamed it in part on job pressure. Copyright: Liverpool Echo 
 
 "We sped like crazy, everyone I know," said Donato DiGiulio, a Chicago-area driver who worked for New York-based Need it Now for eight months. "That's the only way we were able to finish our routes on time. We were zooming through residential areas, all of us, all the time." 
 
 DiGiulio said he almost hit a child playing in the street during a delivery. He slowed down after that and started stopping at stop signs. But then his route times also slowed. Need it Now did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story. 
 
 Eric Jeffries, a former Army combat-arms specialist, said Amazon required a three- to four-minute turnaround between deliveries when he worked for DeliverOL last year. 
 
 He said it was nearly impossible to finish a delivery route within Amazon's nine-hour time frame. He said the delivery job was more physically and emotionally challenging than his time in the Army. 
 
 When he was delivering, Jeffries said, he would park illegally, stuff a backpack full of packages, and then physically sprint to complete deliveries on time. He said he lost 30 pounds in his first month on the job. 
 
 Despite his best efforts, supervisors told him he wasn't delivering packages quickly enough, and his job was threatened twice. But Jeffries said he didn't blame the companies. He blamed Amazon. 
 
 "They get harped on by Amazon on a regular basis, and it pushes them to act inhuman toward workers," he said. 
 
 Blanchard said drivers should not run from one stop to the next, and that managers should not threaten workers' jobs unless they're consistently underperforming or failing to show up to work. 
 
 Amazon said its package loads fluctuate depending on a number of factors, including customer demand, and that it's always evaluating routes and making adjustments, such as hiring more drivers in high-demand areas. 
 
 Amazon can track drivers using 'rabbits' and call to check on them if deliveries aren't completed fast enough 
 
 Amazon monitors drivers through handheld package scanners called "rabbits." Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Some drivers said they felt added pressure to maintain a rapid pace on the road because Amazon tracked them and might call their supervisors if something looked off. 
 
 Amazon monitors drivers through handheld package scanners called "rabbits." These scanners enable Amazon to update customers on an order's location through the company's new service, Map Tracking. 
 
 It also means that if a driver stalls on a route, Amazon might take notice. 
 
 "Amazon will call our dispatchers and say: 'Your driver is behind by 25 packages. Why is that?' And then our dispatchers are pressured to respond," said Davian Delvalle, a driver who worked for two Amazon-affiliated delivery companies in New Jersey. 
 
 If drivers fall behind, dispatchers — the supervisors who manage drivers on the road — will "go crazy," he said. "They will keep blowing up your phone and distract you while you are trying to work." 
 
 Amazon said the calls were meant to check on a driver's safety, to see if they needed help finishing routes. 
 
 Some dispatchers saw things that way, but others were alarmed, drivers said. LeShaun Spruell, a driver of two years for TL Transportation, said he's had both kinds of bosses. 
 
 At one delivery station Spruell worked for, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, dispatchers frequently asked him to hurry up, he said. At his new delivery station, priorities seem better. 
 
 "If something goes on, they want to know if you need help," he said. 
 
 Amazon will sometimes offer extra payment for unplanned delays, such as unexpected traffic. One company is now asking its employees to text dispatchers immediately if something slows them down so that they can account for the unplanned time and apply for extra payment from Amazon. 
 
 But courier companies are careful not to ask too much of Amazon. Many said they were afraid of getting contracts yanked, employees told Business Insider, and that the unbalanced relationship leaves no one to defend the drivers. 
 
 "Amazon DSP owners usually are very afraid of Amazon," a courier company manager said. "Amazon has all the power. They're the one that invited you in. They can give you 10 routes. They could give you one route. Or they could say goodbye." 
 
 Amazon says most routes are completed in under nine hours, but pay stubs suggest otherwise 
 
 Ip, the Amazon spokeswoman, said most drivers — over 90% — complete routes in a reasonable time frame and that drivers were encouraged to take breaks any time they needed. 
 
 "The majority of drivers complete their daily routes in under nine hours, which factor in breaks, traffic patterns, and more," Ip said. "And in cases where inclement weather or traffic may impact a driver's ability to complete a customer delivery on time, Amazon works closely with delivery service providers to make adjustments to their delivery route and, if necessary, DSPs call drivers to return to the station." 
 
 Business Insider 
 
 Business Insider reviewed payroll documents for several drivers; they suggested that drivers' workdays can last much longer than nine hours. 
 
 An analysis of seven days of Prime EFS payroll information, for example, showed that over the course of more than 200 routes in September, drivers were clocked in for more than 11 hours, on average. 
 
 Some work shifts, which begin when a driver arrives at the warehouse until the time they return at night, were 16 hours. 
 
 An Amazon-affiliated job listing for drivers also says drivers' workdays far exceed nine hours. 
 
 Southern Star Express recently advertised that drivers typically work 12 to 15 hours straight. They should expect to make between 200 and 250 stops a day, delivering at least 25 packages an hour. 
 
 "You will run until you deliver ALL your packages for the day," the ad read. "If you finish your route early, you will pick up a rescue route for an additional $1 per package rescued. You are responsible for attempting to deliver all the packages you were assigned regardless of the time." 
 
 Some drivers say they're getting screwed, but it might not be Amazon's problem. Customers could be to blame. 
 
 Amazon says most routes are completed in under nine hours, but pay stubs suggest otherwise. (The drivers in this story are not employed by Penske). Hayley Peterson/Business Insider 
 
 Amazon's delivery drivers may have a lot of problems. But that might not be Amazon's problem to solve because it doesn't technically employ them. 
 
 Contract work has exploded across the US in the past 40 years. It's an increasingly popular option for companies looking to cut costs, streamline operations, and meet sudden increases in demand. 
 
 Most hotels, for example, once hired their own front-desk personnel and maid services. Now many hotels largely outsource to contract workers and third parties. Uber and Lyft built multibillion-dollar ride-hailing services without technically employing a single driver. 
 
 The transition from full-time employees to contract workers has created a seismic shift in the American workforce. It is financially beneficial for corporations, and the executives who run them. Amazon said it uses this model to empower small businesses. But for those who actually do the grunt work, it can make them feel powerless. Labor experts say they often receive low pay, few benefits, and have no real allies in these difficult-to-regulate third-party environments. 
 
 "This [shift to contract work] creates downward pressure on wages and benefits, murkiness about who bears responsibility for work conditions, and increased likelihood that basic labor standards will be violated," David Weil, the head of the US Labor Department's wage and hour division under the Obama administration, wrote in his book "The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It." 
 
 These trends are worse in an industry such as logistics, where cost is the only real competitive difference that sets apart one courier company that Amazon might choose to employ versus another, according to Beth Gutelius, a senior researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 
 
 "You have everyone slightly under-bidding each other, so much so that it would be impossible for them to pay their workers even the minimum wage," Gutelius said. "It creates a competitive market among subcontractors. Who ends up paying the price, then, is the workers." 
 
 There are no unions fighting on the behalf of Amazon drivers, either. Most are employed by small courier companies across multiple locations, and there is no large organization where they can band together. 
 
 Part of the problem are the customers. 
 
 Amazon has created such a seamless shopping experience that customers are ordering more and more without stopping to consider how packages actually show up at their doors. 
 
 "The expectation that Amazon has set — of free, fast shipping — it's almost an impossibility," Tia Koonse, a legal and policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center, said. "It costs money to ship things." 
 
 "Because it's this invisible process we, as consumers, are willing to overlook it and what's happening to workers," Koonse added. 
 
 For Vargas, whose fingers have healed since getting trapped in his truck door, the feeling of being invisible resonates. 
 
 He accepted another job in a different industry, in August, and not just because his superiors mocked him. It's mostly because he couldn't handle any more 13-hour days. 
 
 He knows Amazon and its millions of shoppers aren't likely to slow down any time soon. 
 
 "I am a human being that has emotions, and it's draining," he said. "It beats you down." 
 
 Áine Cain contributed reporting. 
 
 Are you an insider with a story about Amazon? Contact me at hpeterson@businessinsider.com.
– Amazon has an open secret that few pay heed to: a "nearly invisible workforce" that works to get consumers their packages on demand, per Gizmodo. Bryan Menegus dives into the company's Flex program, responsible for the firm's "last-mile" service, which involves getting ordered goods to a customer from the last local shipment site on the delivery chain. But while the driving program is described online by Amazon as letting those interested "be your own boss, set your own schedule, and have more time to pursue your goals and dreams," Menegus—who chatted with 15 current or ex-drivers from nine states and two countries, as well as with three contractors from local courier companies tied to Amazon—instead paints it as an exploitive system that considers its drivers "utterly expendable" and offers them little recourse to address issues or unfair practices. What he found is that getting into the Flex program can be simple: Entry criteria are "modest" (e.g., being over 21, having a smartphone with the Flex app), as is training. One UK driver says: "Honestly, it seems they take on anyone." But once on board, drivers say they face faulty data systems, altercations between drivers vying for prime routes (and high-tech cheating to claim those routes), and a lack of support from "hot-headed warehouse managers" who take a "customer is always right" attitude. And one labor attorney thinks not everything is on the up-and-up when it comes to how the company handles its drivers: considering them contractors, but treating them like employees, with all of the responsibility and few benefits. "I think it's breaking the law in a pretty widespread way," she says. More on the Flex program, part of the "constantly shifting, secretive nature of Amazon," here.