Hacker News Reader

This sounds contradictory to me:

If Amazon wants to run a delivery network it should [be an even larger monopoly]

...

Federal antitrust action against monopolies and monopsonies would be helpful too.

Amazon is a monopsony with respect to its delivery subcontractors. They are not real independent businesses in a real market, but are wholly reliant on Amazon, using Amazon branding and with most aspects of their business dictated by Amazon. The only reason Amazon has set things up this way is because it (a) allows them to deliberately abuse their subcontractors’ workers in ways that would be unlawful if they directly employed them, and (b) shields them from various kinds of legal risks which they should be liable for.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Amazon’s delivery network or other business practices. You’d have to ask a labor lawyer for a full account.

Requiring them to follow contractor vs w2 employee rules is not making them any bigger or smaller. Frankly, I'm not sure how they are skirting the law thus far. I'm not even sure they own the trucks that have Amazon branding on them. I have read some claims that the subcontractors have to buy or lease the vehicles from Amazon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com