Amazon Flex workers' schedules aren't so flexible after all, new report suggests

An Amazon Flex signPhoto by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesAmazon Flex gig workers don't have as much flexibility as other gig workers, a new report suggests.Some workers are locked out of the Flex app after working around five hours a day, according to the report.Amazon has grown Flex to deliver many of its packages over the last decade.Amazon's Flex delivery program bills itself as "a flexible way of earning extra money on your own schedule."A new report from a union-backed workers' rights non-profit suggests that's not quite the case.The report, released on Wednesday by the advocacy group National Employment Law Project, points to signs that Amazon Flex workers may not have as much flexibility as Amazon suggests they do.Flex, which Amazon started in 2015, lets gig workers deliver packages for the company using their own vehicles.Maya Pinto, senior researcher and policy analyst at NELP, interviewed between September and May eight Amazon Flex drivers in New Jersey who are organizing. The drivers said they sometimes had trouble working as much as they wanted and on the schedules that they preferred.Two of the Flex workers whom Pinto interviewed said Amazon's app would sometimes prevent them from signing up for more than five hours of work a day, which meant they ended up working less than 40 hours a week, including weekend shifts. The Flex drivers said that they were sometimes locked out of the app after working some shifts."The app lockouts are really preventing Flex drivers from being free to choose when they want to work," she said.Amazon spokesperson Amber Plunkett told Business Insider that the company hadn't reviewed the report and that it appears to be "another attempt by NELP to intentionally leave out important context in order to fit their own narrative."The group has conducted other worker research and advocacy efforts that have been critical of Amazon and other gig companies."The fact is, for nearly a decade, Amazon Flex has empowered delivery partners across the country to deliver Amazon packages on their own schedules with competitive earnings," the spokesperson said.Amazon said that the shifts it offers to Flex drivers can vary between weeks, and also due to changes in seasonal demand.Gig workers for apps from Flex to Uber to Instacart often say that the flexibility to work when they want is a major reason that they opt to earn money as independent contractors.The Flex drivers' experience is one example of how gig work may not be as flexible in practice as some workers expect. Ride-hailing drivers, for instance, tend to find that demand for their services is higher during certain times of the day or days of the week, and those times may or may not align with their own availability. As a result, they may have to work outside their preferred hours or earn less than they anticipated.One Flex driver in New Jersey, whom Pinto interviewed for the study, told BI that she frequently checks Flex when she's not working to try to claim shifts that pay around $30 an hour. That's good pay in her area, she said: Other shifts pay closer to $20 an hour.On Reddit, some posters who say that they are Amazon Flex drivers give advice to new drivers on how to claim work. Among their tips: Figure out when shifts drop in your area and be ready to claim them the moment they're available — even if that's early in the morning. Some have also complained about issues with the app.The driver BI spoke with said that she has sometimes been locked out of the app after working shifts for Flex.She said that the lockouts weren't consistent, though, and she wasn't sure what caused them. The driver said she was able to claim more than five hours of work a day for this week, when Amazon is offering four days of sales for Prime Day. Amazon allows Flex workers to claim shifts up to a few days in advance.Amazon Flex is one part of the expanding world of gig workNELP's report points to other conditions that Flex workers face on the job.Amazon measures workers' productivity using several metrics, such as the percentage of packages they deliver on a route.Not all of those performance metrics are always within a Flex driver's control, according to the report. "Long queues and a lack of parking at a delivery station or a glitching Global Positioning System on a driver's smartphone can negatively affect 'on-time arrival,'" the report reads, referring to another metric Amazon uses to evaluate drivers.Amazon uses metrics like on-time arrival to determine a driver's "standing" grade. The grade can, in turn, affect a driver's pay and access to future shifts, according to the report.Amazon told BI that standing doesn't affect how much work a Flex driver can sign up for, and that grade accounts for circumstances outside a driver's control.One of the report's conclusions is that Flex drivers are misclassified as independent contractors. It says they should be considered employees since Amazon's control of their working conditions, such as through metric-based standing, means that they "are not truly in business for themselves like legitimate independent contractors are."Gig workers are generally classified as independent contractors.And gig work continues to expand. Retailers like Walmart and Target also have their own gig workforces picking up and delivering customers' orders. Apps that bring gig work to other industries, such as nursing, have also proliferated."We're seeing it being used by a lot of different corporations and different industries," Pinto said.Do you have a story to share about gig work? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or 808-854-4501.Read the original article on Business Insider

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