New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a lawsuit against Amazon over what she called “anticompetitive practices” that impact thousands of delivery drivers in the state.
In a news conference Tuesday, Davenport announced the antitrust lawsuit against the company, claiming that it “unlawfully maintains its dominant power” over drivers in its Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program by “preventing unionization, restricting the companies in its delivery network from hiring one another’s drivers, and otherwise limiting competition for their labor.”
The complaint also alleges that Amazon’s conduct causes thousands of New Jersey residents to earn lower wages and endure harsher working conditions than they otherwise would.
“My office is acting to stand up for thousands of New Jersey delivery drivers who are being exploited every day by one of the world’s biggest, richest corporations,” said Davenport. “As our complaint alleges, Amazon built a company worth trillions while subjecting drivers in its delivery network to artificially low pay and punishing working conditions thanks to its overwhelming power in the labor market.”
According to Davenport, this is the first time any state has brought a monopsony conduct complaint.
According to officials, Amazon created the DSP program in 2018. While Amazon describes DSPs as independent businesses, the complaint alleges they are “anything but independent.”
“Amazon keeps control of the levers that matter—setting demanding operational requirements, monitoring driver performance, controlling route allocations, and restricting DSPs from hiring one another’s drivers—with exploitative consequences for the drivers themselves. Amazon is able to maintain this anticompetitive environment because it is the dominant purchaser of labor for DSP delivery services,” officials wrote in a release.
The complaint also accuses Amazon of closely monitoring DSP drivers through artificial intelligence, in-vehicle cameras, and other technology, and that it has responded to suspected union organizing with intimidation and the retaliatory reallocation of routes.
The complaint also alleges that Amazon controls the DSPs’ hiring process. For instance, some workers who supported union organizing at an Amazon delivery station were later rejected or terminated by other DSPs in Amazon’s delivery network. And Amazon has sought to prevent DSPs from hiring each other’s workers—a classic form of anticompetitive behavior known as “no-poach” agreements.
NBC10 reached out to Amazon for comment on the lawsuit, and responded with the following statement:
“This complaint is not grounded in fact. The Attorney General’s characterization of the DSP Program and the claims about working conditions are just wrong. The truth is, DSPs are independent business owners who make their own decisions about hiring, fleet management, and capacity planning — and they choose whether to work with other companies besides Amazon. Had the Attorney General bothered to look at the facts, they would have also seen that the vast majority of routes are finished on-time or early — built on real-world data accounting for stop complexity, traffic, and geography. DSPs manage their drivers’ workday and route execution, and DSP employees are free to choose their employer and associate with who they want, full stop.
Steve Kelly, Amazon spokesperson
“Despite our cooperation, the Attorney General’s office did not raise the central claims in this complaint with us before filing suit. They chose a press conference over a conversation or real effort to understand the truth, but we’re confident the facts will speak for themselves in court.”
