Facing heat, Amazon plans to set up resting points for delivery workers across cities

Amazon is not the first gig-work oriented company that is setting up such resting points.

Over the coming years, e-commerce major Amazon plans to open a number of rest points for delivery workers, which would be equipped with drinking water, air conditioning, seating area, and mobile charging points. On Friday, the company inaugurated the first such facility in Gurugram.

The facility will be accessible to all delivery workers, and not just those in Amazon’s fleet, the company’s vice president, operations, Abhinav Singh told The Indian Express. Drivers would be required to register their details with a security professional guarding the facility, following which they could use the resting point for 30 minutes. At its peak, the facility in Gurugram could host up to 15 people, Singh said.

“The aim is to make sure that before the summer months set in, all cities which have high humidity or heat, and where we have a significant amount of presence in terms of a network of points should have resting points like this,” Singh said. Asked if the company was targeting a particular number of such facilities, he said, “We haven’t taken an end target in mind because it will depend on the need that we have… But, suffice to say that you will have multiple points starting with cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune…”

Amazon is not the first gig-work oriented company that is setting up such resting points. Food delivery major Zomato also operates some facilities like these across the country.

The move comes as Amazon, and other companies that make the gig economy have repeatedly been accused of poor working conditions, especially for delivery workers, who more often than not work with these entities as contractual labourers with little to no benefits.