Delivery drivers in uproar

Delivery drivers working for Dragonfly, Amazon's delivery contractor in the Thompson-Okanagan, are protesting what they say are increasingly working late hours.

Drivers say they are being told to deliver packages late into the night, often completing their routes well past midnight, sometimes in unsafe conditions.

On Tuesday afternoon outside a Dragonfly services building on Beaver Lake Road in Lake Country, close to 100 drivers gathered, threatening to strike unless the circumstances surrounding their jobs were addressed. The drivers are not unionized.

"The management is not listening to us. They are sending us out late, and we have more than 250 packages. The sunset is near 5:30 p.m., and we start delivering at 5:30 p.m. The house numbers are not visible to us," said driver Haspraad Singh.

Amar Shergill says some drivers are sent on routes as far as Princeton and have had to deal with unsafe situations.

"There are so many incidents happening," Shergill said, explaining that a driver delivering a package late at night to a Princeton property had a firearm pulled on him by a homeowner startled by the late visit.

"Anything could have happened. We told the whole story to the warehouse, but they didn't do a single thing about it," Shergill said.

Shergill says that if packages are not delivered in the required time and the drivers do not return to the warehouse on time, they can be charged for the packages.

"We try to deliver as much as we can. After 10 p.m., they pressure us to come back to the warehouse... return the packages, return the packages because they are on salaries."

"They don't want to be sitting in the warehouse all night. So even a guy who is delivering in Princeton is pressured to deliver as much as he can during the night and come to the warehouse before the time limit. Otherwise, we will be charged for those packages," he explained.

One of the delivery drivers told Castanet they are still undecided about whether or not they will go ahead with delivering packages Tuesday night.

The drivers said that due to their informal strike, a manager from Dragonfly told them they were allowed to start earlier Tuesday afternoon.

Dragonfly, which was previously branded Intelcom, is headquartered in Quebec. A Kelowna driver says someone from corporate is on their way to talk to the drivers on Wednesday. The company online says it employs 2,500 people in 10 provinces.

Singh says he won't be delivering his packages on Tuesday.

"We are not doing our route today because it is too late, and we still have to scan more than 250 packages. We have to load them into our van and start delivering. It's almost dark, so we cannot deliver," he said.

Castanet has contacted Dragonfly for comment but has yet to receive a response.