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A class action lawsuit filed by Amazon Flex drivers alleges that the online retailer illegally snoops on private Facebook groups to gather intelligence on potential collective bargaining efforts.
Amazon contracts with more than 800 delivery partners to get its billions of dollars of volume delivered, according to the complaint, and has formed an entire division to keep tabs on what the drivers are posting online.
These contracted couriers are known as Flex drivers. Drickey Jackson, the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit, has worked as an Amazon Flex driver and says he joined a related Facebook group in 2016 as a way to communicate with other drivers.
These Facebook groups included posts sharing grievances, including reported feelings of not having job security and minimal benefits.
Jackson says in the years since he joined, he personally posted messages about Amazon missing payments, problems with routes, getting no breaks and making deliveries after a shift was supposed to end. He thought his posts were confidential.
These issues, Jackson said in the complaint, were followed by labor disputes with Amazon.
“The idea of these Facebook groups is that they are only populated with Flex Drivers, not other persons, and certainly not employees or personnel of Defendant,” the class action lawsuit states.
Amazon is snooping on these Facebook groups in an effort to monitor planned strikes and unionizing efforts, moves the company has been resistant to, Jackson says.
The company was also keeping an eye on outside researchers investigating the industry who’ve approached Amazon Flex drivers, the class action lawsuit claims.
An entire division has been created to handle social media chatter on these topics, according to the complaint.
Amazon’s “Advocacy Operations Social Listening Team” is staffed with expert investigators holding credentials in signals and communications intelligence, Jackson said.
These teams not only monitor social media channels themselves, but also deploy automated tools and software to keep track of what’s being talked about, Jackson alleges.
These posts are “intercepted in real-time” and organized into an alleged “social media bank,” according to Jackson, then delivered to executives in regular reports. These reports flag messages involving strikes, benefits, unions or outside attempts to contact the drivers.
Jackson says Amazon asked staff on the company’s Advocacy Operations Social Listening Team to keep it secret, especially with Amazon Flex drivers, pointing in the class action lawsuit to a message on the login screen to a tool used in the alleged spying.
“It will have a detrimental effect if it falls within the reach of any of our Delivery partners. DO NOT SHARE without proper authentication.”
Jackson claims Amazon has admitted to the program and cites a leaked document in the class action lawsuit.
The document, titled “social media monitoring” describes the extent of what Jackson calls Amazon’s illegal wiretapping.
In the document, Amazon identified 43 closed Facebook groups run by Amazon Flex drivers and directed them “to be monitored,” according to the complaint.
“Defendant confirmed that this document came from a sophisticated and secret program that surveils dozens of private Facebook groups set up by workers,” Jackson’s class action lawsuit says.
Jackson is seeking to form a Class of California Amazon Flex drivers who are also a part of related closed Facebook groups.
Formally, the class action lawsuit is accusing Amazon of violating California’s privacy laws and intrusion upon seclusion.
Are you an Amazon Flex driver? Do you think Amazon Flex drivers are entitled to confidentiality in closed Facebook groups? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Counsel representing the plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit are L. Timothy Fisher and Neal J. Deckant of Bursor & Fisher PA.
The Amazon Flex Drivers Class Action Lawsuit is Drickey Jackson, et al. v. Amazon.com Inc., Case No. 3:20-cv-02365-BEN-BGS, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
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