Training provided through videos in the app. For some people, being an independent contractor is one of the best parts of driving for Flex. Parking headaches weren’t the only problem. The Teamsters recently gave workers the go-ahead to call a strike amid ongoing contract negotiations, although the two sides said late last week they’d reached a tentative deal. And I didn’t even have to put up with the early, unpaid hours of the “sip and tap” drivers who depended on Flex for work that they never knew for sure was coming the next day. When I arrived at the Market Street address where the first batch of packages were supposed to be delivered, I swiped “I’ve arrived” on the Flex app. (None of the 19 videos I had to watch to be a Flex driver recommended bringing a delivery cart or a dolly.) Had I injured myself carrying the package, I would not have been able to receive workers’ compensation or paid medical time off. To officially become an Amazon Flex delivery driver, use the Flex smartphone app to start scheduling the blocks of time during which you will pick up and deliver packages. But Flex operates year-round, not just during the holiday season, which suggests there’s another reason for it: It’s cheap. For me, being an independent contractor meant that the job was lonely, with no colleagues to share stories with, and no boss to ask about the many confusing aspects of being a first-day driver. If the driver gets into a car accident, the driver, not Amazon, is responsible for medical and insurance costs. At one point, a friendly police officer tried to lift it for kicks and groaned audibly. This may make it harder for employers to classify workers as contractors—but still, it will be hard for Amazon Flex workers in California to change their classification. Have to pay for your own fuel, App errors can cause you to be late with packages. If a driver gets a speeding ticket, the driver pays. Liss-Riordan says one of the biggest obstacles to getting workers to take legal action over their classification is that many Flex workers agree, upon signing up to deliver packages, to resolve disputes with Amazon through arbitration. Being an independent contractor also meant that the job was hard to leave behind, even when I was done for the day. The flex rods also come out as one unit, making it easy to clean with hand washing or on the top rack of the dishwasher. As the larger trucking industry has discovered over the past decade, using independent contractors rather than unionized drivers saves money, because so many expenses are borne by the drivers, rather than the company. It also could fundamentally change people’s relationship with their employers—think of people like Chris Miller, the Ohio Flex driver, who for years was a full-time employee at various radio stations, and now is on his own. They are not authored by Glassdoor. Miller’s wife has a full-time job with benefits, so his Flex earnings are helpful for paying off his family’s credit-card bills. When I tried to use the app to call the recipients, it directed me to the wrong phone numbers; I eventually called a phone number printed on an office door and left a message. Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Convertible 2-in-1 Laptop: Stay productive with this 15.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book Flex laptop. There are efforts to make some of the people who drive for Flex employees rather than independent contractors, a move that worker advocates say could go a long way in improving the quality of these jobs. If he wakes up in the morning and doesn’t feel like driving for Flex, he can go back to sleep, or spend his time leading the music worship service at his church, or homeschooling his kids. All around pretty good, Good money, easy to use the app, PPE available, Hard to get shifts, busy at pick up depot, I worked at Amazon Flex part-time for less than a year. He does not get paid for the hour he spends tapping. Glassdoor will not work properly unless browser cookie support is enabled.Learn how to enable cookies. In total, I drove about 40 miles (not counting the 26 miles I had to drive between the warehouse and my apartment). The top of the block has a slight angle to make docking and undocking easier, and will accommodate blades up … Your response will be removed from the review – this cannot be undone. Brown, the Milwaukee Amazon Flex driver, is the sole provider for his family, and uses BadgerCare, the Wisconsin health-insurance program for low-income residents, for his family’s insurance. Brown likes to work two shifts delivering groceries for Amazon, from 4:30 to 6:30 a.m. and from 6:30 to 8:30 a.m., but the morning we talked, no 4:30 shifts were available. I became an Amazon Flex independent contractor by downloading an app, going through a background check, and watching 19 videos that explained in great detail the process of delivering packages. Competing for blocks Even weeks after I’d stopped driving for Flex, I kept getting new notifications from Amazon, telling me that increased rates were available, tempting me to log back in and make a few extra bucks, making me feel guilty for not opening the app, even though I have another job. If one of these workers put the wrong address on the package, they would get a refund, while I was scurrying around trying to figure out what they meant when they listed their address as “fifth floor” and there was no fifth floor. Then I got a message on my phone telling me the current average wait time for support was “less than 114,767 minutes.” I ended up just handing the packages to people in the offices without scanning them, hoping that someone, somewhere, was tracking where they went. Please email your response to letters@theatlantic.com. (A new lawsuit now in front of the Supreme Court argues that transportation workers are exempt from that rule.) Twice in the last year, he’s been barred from seeing new blocks for seven days because Amazon accused him of using a bot to grab blocks—he says he just taps the app so frequently that Amazon assumes he’s cheating. That means he’s incurred about $40,000 in expenses—costs he didn’t think about initially, such as changing the oil more frequently and replacing headlights and taillights. My only option, because I was driving a personal car, he said, was to park in a garage or deliver the packages at night. What It’s Really Like to Work at Some of the World’s Most Iconic Brands, 8 Companies Offering Seriously Good Financial Benefits, 10 UK Jobs Where You Can Earn More Than £65,000, The 25 Highest Paying Companies in the UK for 2019, 10 Highest Paying Entry-Level Jobs in the UK, The Best Questions to Ask at an Interview, According to a Hiring Manager, 5 Keys to Preparing for a Competency-Based Interview. There had been no instructions about where to leave the package, but she told me she had frequently asked Amazon to leave her packages at another office. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Amazon Flex is right for you. How could these two different types of jobs exist in the same economy? When he is barred from seeing blocks, he has no recourse but to repeatedly email Amazon, which has never led to his suspension being lifted. People are worried that automation is going to create a “job apocalypse,” but there will likely be thousands more driving and delivery jobs in upcoming years, according to Viscelli. DEAL,” I scrawled in my notebook, after having walked down nine flights of stairs, sick of waiting for a freight elevator that may or may not have been broken, and returned to my car for another armful of packages. I was handed a yellow safety vest to wear inside the warehouse so other drivers could see me, “compliments of Amazon,” a man told me, and I was directed to a parking spot where a cart of packages awaited. I began loading them into my trunk, but paused when I saw the addresses printed on them.

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