>At last count, there were 2.5 million sellers hawking products on Amazon, making it the largest single employment-related arbitration clause in America.
Everyone will have his own opinion, but from my perspective, as someone who used to sell on Amazon, I would never consider myself an Amazon employee.
There are probably[0] much larger forced arbitration clauses out there. Chase recently pushed one out to all its credit card users.[1] I would suspect they have more than 2.5 million users, but am not sure.
[0] I say "probably" because Chase actually does let you reject the agreement within a certain timeframe. I believe you can still use their services if you reject it, so it's not quite the same as Amazon.
[1] There is still time. If you want to reject Chase's binding arbitration, you are still in the window to write to them and reject it.
I dislike forced arbitration clauses as much as anyone, but I find it an untenable stretch to imply that third-party sellers are in any way in an "employment" relationship with Amazon, in fact applying the common "are you an employee" tests I don't see any that apply.
> Every seller pays a monthly flat subscription rate, and referral fees for every sale of typically 15 percent, though they can range higher depending on the goods. Sellers also pay to use “Fulfillment by Amazon” (FBA), where Amazon handles customer service, storage, and shipping through its vast logistics network.
Well, I've never worked anywhere and paid for the privilege.
>At last count, there were 2.5 million sellers hawking products on Amazon, making it the largest single employment-related arbitration clause in America.
Everyone will have his own opinion, but from my perspective, as someone who used to sell on Amazon, I would never consider myself an Amazon employee.
There are probably[0] much larger forced arbitration clauses out there. Chase recently pushed one out to all its credit card users.[1] I would suspect they have more than 2.5 million users, but am not sure.
[0] I say "probably" because Chase actually does let you reject the agreement within a certain timeframe. I believe you can still use their services if you reject it, so it's not quite the same as Amazon.
[1] There is still time. If you want to reject Chase's binding arbitration, you are still in the window to write to them and reject it.