New Jersey Sues Amazon, Alleging It Illegally Suppresses Delivery Drivers' Wages

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon on August 4, accusing the company of unlawfully wielding monopsony power over the labor market for its delivery drivers. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

The lawsuit targets Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program, launched in 2018, which relies on thousands of small contracted companies to handle last-mile package delivery instead of direct Amazon employees. Davenport’s office alleges Amazon restricts competition within that network in three specific ways: preventing DSPs from hiring one another’s drivers, discouraging unionization efforts, and tightly controlling how delivery businesses operate day to day.

The legal theory is monopsony, not the more familiar monopoly. Instead of alleging Amazon overcharges customers, the state argues Amazon uses its dominant position as the sole buyer of DSP labor to suppress what those thousands of small delivery businesses — and the drivers they employ — can earn. Federal and New Jersey state antitrust law both prohibit this kind of buyer-side market power abuse.

This is the third active New Jersey legal action against Amazon’s delivery operations. The state’s Division on Civil Rights has separately alleged systematic civil rights violations in Amazon’s treatment of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities. A third suit, brought jointly by the AG’s office and the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, accuses Amazon and its Flex program of misclassifying drivers as independent contractors to avoid paying wages and benefits owed to employees.

Taken together, the three cases paint a consistent picture: New Jersey regulators view Amazon’s entire last-mile labor structure — DSP contracting, Flex gig classification, and workplace protections — as designed to externalize costs onto workers who lack the bargaining power of direct employees.

Amazon has not yet filed a public response to the antitrust complaint. The DSP program processes a significant share of Amazon’s package volume nationally, so a ruling against the company’s control mechanisms could force operational changes well beyond New Jersey — any injunction affecting national DSP contract terms would apply to Amazon’s delivery network everywhere it operates.

Sources

• AG Davenport Sues Amazon Over Anticompetitive Practices Affecting DSP Delivery Drivers
• New Jersey sues Amazon on antitrust grounds, alleging it unlawfully wielded its power over delivery contractors