There have been points in time where I’ve actually seen spots while being back there looking for a package,” said Singh. “Once you get into that back cargo area, it’s literally like walking into an oven where we immediately start sweating. Raj Singh, who has been working as a driver delivering packages for Amazon for more than two years, noted where they work is a desert, frequently exposing workers to extreme heat, with the cargo areas of the vans often reaching 130F (54C). In vehicles with air conditioning, Lopez said it worked poorly in blowing cold air or bringing down the temperature in the vehicle, and recounted an instance where he burned himself on a metal rack in a van when his arm touched it while retrieving a package because of how hot the metal was. But at the same time, we’re still hanging strong Heath Lopez Amazon is still in the works trying to terminate us.
“We can park in the shade all we want, even in the hottest of heat, we can open up all the doors, it still feels like it’s a sauna in there,” he said. Lopez described the delivery vans as a “sauna” in hot weather. He explained Amazon tracks drivers through cameras in the vehicles, monitoring systems on their routes and will tell their dispatchers to contact them if they are falling behind on a delivery route. Heath Lopez has worked as a driver for Amazon since September 2020, and explained he became involved in the union organizing effort that began in summer 2022 over extreme heat conditions, and that workers were pushing for better pay, benefits and working conditions. Delivery drivers at Amazon work for independent contractors, small businesses that are contracted in Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner Program, wearing Amazon-branded uniforms and driving Amazon-branded delivery vans or trucks. The California workers approved a contract with their delivery service provider in April.
In 2017, a similar issue occurred when drivers at an Amazon delivery service partner in Michigan unionized: Amazon cut the delivery service partner’s contract before the workers secured a first union contract. Workers are now engaged in an unfair labor practice strike to demand Amazon bargain with the union, rather than simply terminate the contract. That matters because the 84 drivers and dispatchers at BTS became the first in Amazon’s network to unionize in the US in April among the company’s roughly 3,000 delivery service partners.
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