On the Clock is Motherboard's reporting on the organized labor movement, gig work, automation, and the future of work.
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According to the FTC complaint, drivers who complained about their earnings received formulaic email responses—falsely asserting that Amazon had continued to pay drivers 100 percent of their tips. Amazon used this model until 2019, when the company received notice of the FTC's investigation. At that time, it began to give drivers a breakdown of both their pay and tips. In addition to the $61,710,583 Amazon must pay to compensate shorted drivers, the company will be prohibited from misleading drivers about their expected pay, the percentage of their tips that will go to them, and what qualifies as a tip.
Last year, Motherboard reported that Amazon was running a social media monitoring program to spy on the private social media groups of its Amazon Flex drivers in the United States and Europe, and collect data on their posts. The company promised to discontinue the program following Motherboard's report.Do you have a tip to share about Amazon Flex? We’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with the author at Lauren.gurley@vice.com or privately on Signal (201)-897-2109.
Amazon isn't the first tech company to come under heat for pocketing its gig workers tips, though it may be the most profitable. Last year, the food delivery platform DoorDash paid $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it had stolen drivers’ tips and misled customers to believe their tip money was going to drivers, and Instacart came under federal scrutiny for its tipping policies.