‘They don’t need drivers, they want slaves’: The folks who deliver your Amazon packages want a fair deal

Delivery drivers in Saskatoon spent another day protesting at the Dragonfly distribution centre.

Saskatoon delivery drivers are now on their fifth day of protesting Dragonfly.

Many workers of the delivery company were fired following a mass walkout Friday.

“They don’t need drivers, they want slaves,” Harpal Singh, one of the former delivery drivers said.

Dragonfly is a third-party delivery service which often delivers packages for Amazon. Drivers are recruited and managed through a broker known as an Independent Delivery Contractor, (IDC) which takes 15 per cent of the profits made by drivers.

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Outside of Dragonfly’s Saskatoon headquarters, Singh shared how drivers are paid per package, and the rate has been slowly decreasing. He said drivers were making $1.89 per package this time last year and the most recent decrease put the rate at $1.35 per package. Singh told CTV News that these pay decreases are typically made without formal notice.

“They never discussed with us, we figured [it] out when we got our paycheques ... We would love to continue our work with Dragonfly, but our demand is [that] everything will be [formally] written [down]. And we are not asking for a raise, we are asking for what we used to get,” Singh said.

Employment lawyer Stuart Rudner explained that issues like this have been on the rise in recent years. This is because these workers are in a relatively new industry, which the law doesn’t yet offer a lot of protection for.

Rise of the ‘dependent contractor’

In the past, workers have typically been classified as either employees of an organization or independent contractors. These Dragonfly workers, however, were dependently contracted with the company.

“It made sense in the past when that distinction was really clear ... before the rise of the gig economy. But now you’ve got Uber drivers, delivery drivers and other gig workers who are treated by the law as though they’re independent contractors, but they really are a lot more subject to the whims of the organization,” Rudner said.

Rudner went on to explain that this difference has big impacts when employees are seeking to improve their working conditions.

“Independent contractors are negotiating basically a commercial contract. They can decide if they’re going to work, when they’re going to work, how and where, and the company doesn’t get to oversee them like they would oversee an employee.

“These workers are very, very different. They don’t get to negotiate the terms. They don’t get to decide when they’re going to work, how they’re going to work, or anything like that. Those terms are imposed upon them. But the way our laws set up right now, they’re seen as independent contractors.” Rudner said.

Several members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) joined the dozens picketing on Tuesday.

“We are really saddened to hear about how our friends at Dragonfly were being taken advantage of ... and so we wanted to come out and show support,” said Dave Lambert, education and organization officer for CUPW.

“It’s completely unfair that they should be delivering parcels basically for free with no health and safety provisions.”

While the former Dragonfly drivers were not unionized, Lambert said postal workers and those who use postal services should still be aware of the situation.

“We want them to know that they have union support. I think that’s number one. We want to amplify their message ... I think customers deserve to know and I think customers expect fairness — that the workers that are delivering their parcels and packages are treated fairly,” Lambert said.

In a statement to CTV News, Dragonfly maintained that it does not employ delivery drivers.

“We work alongside independent delivery companies and rely on these partners to provide drivers for the delivery routes available to their respective businesses,” Dragonfly said.

“These independent delivery companies are responsible for driver hiring, scheduling and compensation, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.”

Rudner said this system of hiring third-party companies is quite common for large businesses.

He explained how complex networks can cause issues among workers and create separation from the parent organization.

This is achieved by workers getting hired by companies, which are then partnered with larger companies that are contracted by even larger companies.

“Generally speaking, that’s why companies like Amazon set up this way because they don’t have a direct contractual relationship with the workers,” Rudner said.

“As a company, if you contract with another company, do your deliveries — you’re not responsible for how the workers are treated."

While the options are limited for these delivery drivers, Rudner added that drawing attention to the issue can sometimes create results.

“If you get a public backlash when people hear about how these workers are being treated, that might push Dragonfly to change things. It might push Amazon to push Dragonfly to change things. So it’s all, of course, not legal remedies, but these are other remedies that might help,” he said.