By Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg News

Amazon.com Inc. exercised “overwhelming control” over subcontracted drivers it claimed weren’t its employees, U.S. labor board attorneys told a judge Monday.

“Amazon structured its logistics network to maintain all the benefits of control while denying any responsibility as an employer,” Sanam Yasseri, a lawyer for the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, told an agency judge during opening statements at a hearing in Los Angeles. “It controls every minute of the drivers’ day.”

The judge is considering labor board prosecutors’ claims that Amazon was legally the boss of a group of subcontracted drivers in Palmdale, California, and that the e-commerce giant violated federal labor law by making illegal threats and refusing to negotiate afte

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