A group of seasonal migrant drivers recruited in Spain, victims of a sophisticated scam, are commencing legal action over wage theft after working six-day weeks delivering Amazon packages to British households in the run-up to Christmas.
The drivers, members of the United Voices of the World trade union, returned home to their families in Spain demoralized, empty-handed, and some even indebted to One Motion Logistics Ltd, which provides courier services to the global delivery giant.
The logistics company lured the workers to the UK with promises of earning over £100 per day, free housing, van rental, insurance, and return flights via an online meeting conducted in Spanish. The drivers were informed they would be self-employed, paid weekly, and only needed to cover their food expenses. One Motion also claimed it would handle their work permits.
UVW contends that the drivers were wrongly classified as self-employed and that due to the nature of their relationship with One Motion, they were employees as defined by section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
One Motion delayed the drivers’ pay, leaving large sums unpaid, and once the workers returned to Spain, they were charged for van rental, minor damages, cleaning, and exorbitant administrative fees to process driving fines. The van rental company is also owned by One Motion Logistics Ltd.
Some workers had to take out small loans from One Motion during their first weeks in the UK to buy food, for which One Motion charged 25% interest. Some drivers complained to One Motion and Amazon and eventually reported the company to the UK police, who are making inquiries.
The workers were also expelled from their accommodation on Christmas Eve, a day before their planned return flights. One Motion told some of them to sleep at the airport, others to share beds with strangers in different lodgings, and at least two drivers ended up sleeping rough.
All the workers have reported suffering psychological damage due to this degrading treatment, compounding their financial ruin.
One Motion has committed immigration fraud by submitting visa applications under the EU Settlement Scheme on the drivers’ behalf, once they were already in the UK.
The workers later discovered that these applications, which included their personal mobile phones and passport numbers, had been made fraudulently, based on their purported family relationship to a person in the UK they didn’t know.
Some have since received emails from the Home Office (HO) confirming their applications have been rejected, while others have written to the HO asking to withdraw their applications and explaining the situation.
Amazon’s relationship with the drivers extends beyond reputation; Amazon provided their initial training in-house, and the drivers used the Amazon Flex app during their deliveries. Deliveries have generated significant profits for both companies, with Amazon making nearly $34 billion in delivery sales in the UK alone and One Motion Logistics Ltd reporting £90 million in revenue across operations in the UK, Spain, and Germany.
Diego Martín Baglietto, courier driver and UVW member said: “I feel that I have not only been robbed of my salary, but also of my time, my energy, my hopes and my dignity. . I have been cheated, I have been promised things that have not been fulfilled, and I have felt exploited and mistreated both at work and personally. I had to borrow money to be able to make this trip and I have returned with debts. I ended up sleeping rough. You can’t imagine that a company that makes so many millions a year is going to be built on ripping people off and that this is allowed to go unpunished I don’t want this fraud to go unpunished and I don’t want this to happen to others either. This must not stay like this. We are going to go all out and if we have to go to court, we will.”
Albeiro Ortiz Hernández, courier driver and UVW member said: “Amazon is a permissive company. They must know what is going on with their subcontractors because once we arrived we heard that is common knowledge amongst drivers that One Motion operates in this way, not paying their workers with petty excuses, docking management fees, fines and exorbitant damages. But Amazon doesn’t seem to care, all it seems to be interested in is the end product, making money, selling, selling and selling and nothing else. We had a traumatic Christmas. It was inhumane treatment. Financially it affected me a lot because I couldn’t meet the payments I had to make at the end of November and by deducting so much money from what I was owed I have accumulated debts.”
José Manuel Elá Asángono, courier driver and UVW member said: “Not only they didn’t pay me, One Motion is now saying that I owe them money. After working for five weeks for them, they only paid me £200 out of the agreed £3,100 and they are saying I owe them £5,500. I just want us to be paid back the money we are owed and for this not to happen to anyone else.”
Petros Elia, general secretary of UVW, said:
“Union busting Amazon has always relied on poverty wages to make its sickeningly high profits. Subcontracting out parts of their operation to dodgy and unscrupulous companies is just another nasty trick in their exploitation book. We will do all we can to support those workers to unionise, recover their wages and fight against these abuses.”
Claire Marcel, head of legal unit UVW, said:
“The scale of this case speaks to the level of impunity these companies enjoy under the current anti-migrant climate. They are so confident of their own power that they appear to believe that they can get away with trafficking workers from Spain, submitting fraudulent immigration applications on their behalf, and unlawfully deducting their wages.”
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Image and video credits: UVW