Amazon fined 3.2 million euros in Spain for illegal employment

According to foreign media reports, for violating Spanish labor laws, the local labor inspection bureau proposed to fine Amazon 3.2 million euros and fine its 17 subcontracting companies 2.6 million euros, six of which were temporary employment agencies, for illegally dispatching workers.

The local labor bureau has verified that at least 559 workers were illegally seconded from 17 companies to Amazon to do delivery work. The working conditions of these employees are lower than those if Amazon directly employs them. In addition to having no legal representation, they mainly involve wages and job instability.

The reason is that Amazon created an outsourcing system consisting of different delivery companies, but the system is a series of outsourcing. For example, Amazon hired an outsourcing courier company, but it was not this company that looked for the deliveryman, but a temporary work company ( ETT), which was the company that actually hired the deliveryman.

An outsourced worker named Luis said that he had never worked for Amazon because he had never signed a contract directly with Amazon or with any of Amazon's subcontracting companies. Instead, he had always had an ETT contract, and if he wanted to change companies, he had to get Amazon's permission.

Amazon controls these workers through an application imposed by the multinational corporation on third parties. The choice of which delivery drivers to hire is decided by Amazon, and workers are assigned jobs directly from Amazon. Amazon controls every step and detail of the workers of its subcontracted courier companies. In this way, Amazon can have employees on call at any time, and the wages and other working conditions of these employees are much lower than those directly employed by Amazon. This is why the Labor Inspectorate has determined that there are illegal dispatched workers.

It is reported that this is not the first time Amazon has violated the labor law of Catalonia, Spain. Between 2019 and 2021, the Catalan government has imposed 22 sanctions on Amazon for non-compliance with labor regulations, with a total fine of 1.1 million euros. Nearly half of these sanctions were against illegal dispatched workers. The 3.2 million euro fine imposed on Amazon this time is the highest fine in three years.

The fine proposal from Spain's labour inspectorate has initiated sanctions proceedings and any charges brought must be resolved by labour authorities within six months.

Amazon has announced that it will file charges before the sanctions proposed by the Catalan Labor Inspectorate are imposed. According to the time calculation of multinational companies, Amazon has 15 working days from the date of notification to file charges, so the deadline will end on the 30th of this month.

Spain

Amazon