Amazon is paying a more than $3.7 million settlement after the Seattle Office of Labor Standards investigated allegations that the company's Flex business violated the city's protection law for gig and app-based workers.

The settlement is the second-largest in the office’s history, director Steven Marchese said.

Amazon Flex contracts with thousands of workers in Seattle who deliver packages using their own vehicles, the city office said.

Nearly 11,000 affected workers will see their settlement payments starting around Jan. 1.

The Office of Labor Standards alleged that Amazon violated three temporary city ordinances by only giving workers paid sick and safe time and premium pay if they delivered for the company’s food and grocery lines, and not if they made package deliveries for Amazon warehouses.

Amazon Flex has denied the allegations.

The city set the Gig Worker Premium Pay and Gig Worker and App-Based Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time ordinances in place during the COVID pandemic to provide extra pay and sick leave benefits.

The first ordinance, which required companies to provide workers at least $2.5 per order in extra pay, expired when Mayor Bruce Harrel lifted the pandemic emergency order in October 2022.

The other two ordinances, which were expanded and made permanent in 2023, required some companies to give app-based workers paid sick and safe time for “qualifying circumstances.” Workers are to get one day of sick time for every 30 days worked in Seattle.

Gig workers provided critical services during the pandemic, Harrell said in a written statement.

“This settlement proves the power of organizing to win fair pay and dignified workplaces, and the importance of enforcing those wins, especially in the multibillion-dollar food delivery gig economy that has built its wealth on the underpayment of its workforce,” said Danielle Alvarado, executive director of Working Washington, in the city office's news release.

©2025 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.