Agreements require 15 Amazon Delivery Service Partners to pay back workers for violating local health care requirements
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (May 12, 2025) – San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and City Administrator Carmen Chu today announced that nearly 1,000 workers received checks in the mail as a result of settlement agreements the City Attorney’s Office, in collaboration with the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE), secured with 15 Amazon Delivery Service Partners (DSPs). The agreements required the Amazon DSPs to pay $2.2 million in damages and penalties for violations of the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO) after an OLSE investigation determined the companies were not complying with the law for their last-mile delivery drivers operating in the City.
“Health care costs can easily become a matter of life or death for low-wage workers,” said City Attorney Chiu. “This settlement demonstrates the strength of the Health Care Security Ordinance to ensure a healthier San Francisco and is particularly important when it comes to the last-mile delivery industry that has been growing exponentially. With these types of cases, I’m grateful to the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement for their outstanding work and collaboration alongside my Office’s Worker Protection Team.”
“OLSE’s work to enforce our local labor laws and educate employers and employees about their rights advances the well-being of San Francisco workers, and in turn, supports thriving communities,” said City Administrator Carmen Chu. “I want to thank the OLSE team members who show up every day for workers and City Attorney Chiu for working with us to ensure a just resolution.”
“In this post-pandemic era, access to healthcare is more important than ever, and increasingly, an important component necessary for public safety,” said Patrick Mulligan, Director of OLSE. “I’m incredibly proud of OLSE staff for preserving this benefit on behalf of Amazon DSP drivers, and I’m impressed with the ongoing success of our collaborative efforts with the City Attorney’s Office.”
Background
Amazon relies on its DSPs to make the last-mile deliveries from Amazon warehouses to Amazon customers. As more and more people buy all manner of goods online, last-mile delivery has grown significantly in recent years and become an integral part of the U.S. economy. Amazon launched its DSP program in 2018, and there are now approximately 4,000 DSPs operating throughout the country and 275,000 DSP drivers deliver more than 10 million packages per day.
In 2023, OLSE began an investigation into two local Amazon DSPs for HCSO compliance. Under the HCSO, employers with 20 or more workers must spend a minimum amount on health care for employees who work 8 or more hours per week in San Francisco. OLSE expanded its investigation with the assistance of the City Attorney’s Office to include all Amazon DSPs operating in San Francisco. OLSE found that 15 DSPs failed to comply with the HCSO for 985 San Francisco employees.
The City Attorney’s Office obtained settlement agreements that required the DSPs to pay $1,926,361 in damages to all impacted drivers and $273,091 in penalties to OLSE, totaling approximately $2.2 million.
The checks were mailed to the affected workers by April 20, 2025. As a result of the investigation and settlements, all DSPs operating San Francisco are now complying with the HCSO.
The Office of Labor Standards Enforcement was established in 2001 by the Board of Supervisors to enforce San Francisco Labor Laws. OLSE currently administers more worker protections than any local government agency in the country. To date, the office has collected $180 million on behalf of workers. OLSE continues to support a strong atmosphere of compliance while elevating standards for workers and employers.
This settlement was secured by the Office’s Worker Protection Team, established by City Attorney Chiu in 2022. The Team is staffed by Ian Eliasoph, Hank Giorgi, Matthew Goldberg, Maureen Slack, and Lauren Tantriella. Its mission is to protect the rights of workers in San Francisco and California with an emphasis on combating systemic business practices that exploit marginalized workers. Building on the Office’s longstanding leadership in affirmative litigation, the Team investigates and litigates instances of wage theft, employee misclassification, and other abusive workplace practices.
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