Amazon Drivers in the UK Complain of Fewer Shifts and Decreased Pay After Holiday Rush

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 27 March 2022, 01:03 pm

Amazon is the largest private parcel courier in the United Kingdom. The company delivers 15% of the estimated 5.4 billion packages in 2021, which is equivalent to more than 2 million items a day.

Amazon Workers Report Drop in Pay

The deliveries of Amazon packages in the United Kingdom range from Amazon Prime next-day deliveries to the last mile of packages shipped from thousands of miles away in China or India.

The volumes of the delivery rose dramatically during the pandemic. Again, as the British economy reopened and competition for labor to meet demand during the rush, last Christmas led Amazon and other employers to increase pay rates.

To deliver a service of this scale and complexity, the e-commerce giant relies on a network of thousands of drivers.

Also Read: Climate Change Activists Blocked UK Amazon Warehouses, 13 People Arrested

Instead of keeping these workers on its book, the company manages them through delivery service providers, small companies that handle groups of drivers, who work as self-employed independent contractors with no sick pay, no holiday pay, or no access to the national living wage, according to The Guardian.

Now that the holiday rush is over, Amazon drivers are raising the alarm and are reporting drops in pay and in the number of shifts being offered, while others say that petrol payments have not increased to reflect the increasing fuel prices, according to Protocol.

The hourly rates are on average $19 per hour, about $2 an hour less, or 12% below, rates in October and November 2021 during the Black Friday and pre-Christmas shopping rush, according to Indeed.

Some drivers said that the pay was cut back in December 2021, and others earlier this year, despite a nationwide shortage of skilled workers.

The drivers said they had been handed a pay cut equivalent to an average of $26 a day from the temporary peak rates introduced in October 2021 despite being asked to deliver up to 60 more parcels per shift.

Pavlina Draganova from the group Organize said that while the pay was returning to the same levels as before the holiday season, it still represented a real-terms cut for many.

Draganova said that we are in a different world now than we are last year, and even if the salary now is the same per hour as it was then, this is a real-terms pay cut in the face of increasing inflation and rising petrol prices, that is only likely to become more untenable in the next few months.

More than 39,000 people have signed a petition through Organize, more than 250 Amazon workers, calling on the online retailer to review the pay rates.

The petition claims the delivery drivers are exhausted and worked tirelessly through the pandemic to come out of the other side and receive a kick in the teeth.

Decreasing Pay Rates of Drivers

The drivers said that the rates of pay are constantly fluctuating, with one driver experiencing five different changes in day rates since September while others had two or three adjustments in that time. The uncertainty of the rates makes it difficult to budget.

Several drivers said while they had not seen a drop in the daily pay compared with the pre-peak levels, they were getting fewer shifts every week. Some drivers said that the shifts were being dropped or offered at very short notice, making it difficult to plan ahead.

In 2021, Amazon Prime in the UK allowed customers to buy groceries online.

Earlier this year, Amazon changed its mind in blocking visa credit cards for customers purchasing items online.