"What Trump Delivered for Amazon" 2 June 2026

...Businessweek used Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain thousands of pages of confidential company records secured by the US government via the case. They lay bare Amazon’s intimate and intensive regulation of workers it insists aren’t its employees, including governing which drivers [delivery service partners] DSPs can hire, when they work, where they drive, what they say, how they smell and much more. Among the new details the records reveal are the extent to which Amazon emphasizes that drivers are expected to act as ambassadors to its customers; the plethora of ways it tracks drivers’ progress and performance, marking in red places where it believes they’ve lingered too long and showing each DSP owner which of their employees it rates the worst; and the scripts and gag rules it gives DSPs about talking to drivers, customers, vendors and the public...

...David Weil, the US Department of Labor’s head of wage and hour enforcement during the Obama administration [said:] “If you are that deeply involved, congratulations, you have responsibility for the employment relationship.” Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work under the law, says Weil, who’s now a professor of social policy and economics at Brandeis University...

...“The DSP Program was founded on the fact that small business owners know their communities best,” the company said in its statement. “They make decisions about who they hire and how they operate their businesses, and our contract standards are common across the delivery industry.” Amazon also denied wrongdoing in the [National Labor Relations Board] NLRB case. “We’re glad to put it behind us so we can focus on supporting our team, our partners — including Delivery Service Partners — and the communities we collectively serve,” the company said...