Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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“When I contacted one of the dispatchers, she said to me, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were having a miscarriage?’ recounted Forte. “I said, ‘I didn’t know, I was already out on my route. It’s not something that is planned.’ She said, ‘Well, we can’t send you a rescue because we don’t have any rescues at the moment.’ So she was letting me know that I should try to finish my route.” While Forte feels that the BTS dispatcher could have been more professional and empathetic during the call, she also says that there is a likely reason she responded that way: dispatchers are under immense pressure from Amazon to ensure drivers deliver the expected number of packages. “I think that her job was on the line,” says Forte. “She has to watch everybody’s schedule to make sure everyone is on top of their routes and their deliveries.” So as she miscarried, Forte continued delivering Amazon packages.
✏️ The prevalent throughline of fear that exists throughout the lower hierarchy, compelled to do the bidding of their unfeeling overlords regardless of human dignity or safety. 🔗 View Highlight
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“For a woman to experience that, with so much pain and discomfort, how do you expect me to finish my route delivering packages in that state?” said Forte. “But I make sure my job is done. I don’t want to be a failure. I don’t want to be known as that. So I tried to continue my route.”
✏️ Fear manifested into adaptability and perseverance for the sake of one’s job, at the risk of everything else. 🔗 View Highlight
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BTS owner Johnathon Ervin, like many DSPs, has his own problems with Amazon. As he told Wired, “The amount of control [Amazon has] is incredible. You’re really just managing a function.” Such a dynamic explains why, chafing under Amazon’s dictates, he recognized the union. Said Ervin: “To have their voices heard was the only option for me. We’ve been fighting together [against Amazon] for quite a while.”
✏️ What’s great here at least is that the subcontracting company feels the pain of what’s going on and supported their workers against the main contractor (Amazon). 🔗 View Highlight
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Amazon has responded by stating that the Palmdale drivers are not its employees. Further, citing what it described as “poor performance” by the DSP, the company said that it had already made the decision not to renew BTS’s contract when it expires this year, adding that it had notified BTS of the nonrenewal before the union went public. However, Ervin says that after his drivers organized a petition to Amazon about vehicles’ broken air-conditioning in the summer of 2022, Amazon sent a BTS representative to an anti-union training, at which the trainer told the representative that Amazon would cancel its contract with BTS were the drivers to unionize. It’s not the first time Amazon has been accused of such retaliation: delivery drivers in Michigan who unionized with the Teamsters in 2017 said that the company similarly retaliated against them.
✏️ Naturally, no good deed goes unpunished, as Amazon quickly retaliates against the subcontractor for misbehaving, and promptly cuts them off. And this is after first threatening them a year before as to what would happen if they pursued unionization. 🔗 View Highlight