Mayor Mamdani increased pressure on Council Speaker Julie Menin on Thursday by rallying in support of a bill that would block Amazon and other major retailers from using third-party contractors for customer deliveries.
Although the bill, called the Delivery Protection Act, had a hearing in April and has earned supermajority support with 34 sponsors, Menin has not yet brought it to the floor for a vote.
The bill would require Amazon and other retailers that own “last-mile” delivery warehouses where goods are prepared for delivery to directly employ the delivery drivers. It also would require those facilities to be licensed with the city and establish extra safety and training protocols.
If enacted, the bill would make New York City the first municipality to impose these policies. Amazon does not directly employ workers anywhere in the country and instead contracts its labor force through other firms.
Those opposed to the legislation have raised concerns that small businesses that support Amazon deliveries would go under if the law were to take effect. Amazon itself has also threatened to shut down warehouses if the legislation passes — a threat it made good on last year in Canada — and the company has poured over $10 million into fighting back against the bill.
Proponents of the bill call Amazon’s current model “exploitative” for profiting off the work of third-party delivery drivers, who wear Amazon-branded regalia and drive trucks with the company’s trademark arrow swoosh, while the company escapes accountability for poor working conditions or crashes and worker injuries.
Debate around the bill has intensified this week, and the mayor’s presence at the rally — a length to which he does not generally go for Council legislation as mayor — is being seen as another escalation.
“You deliver essential goods to millions of New Yorkers in every neighborhood, in every borough,” Mamdani told the rallying workers and the Teamsters Union on the steps of City Hall on Thursday. “All you ask in return is job stability, labor protections, and safe working conditions. That is not greed. That is the bare minimum.”
A spokesperson for Amazon on Thursday said the legislation would put 5,000 jobs at risk and “force” them to consider relocating warehouses outside the city, which would mean “slower and more expensive” delivery.
“We’re committed to creating good jobs and supporting our thousands of employees in New York City,” the spokesperson said. “We’re equally committed to the local small business partners who work with us every day to provide fast, reliable delivery for New Yorkers. But as written, this legislation would directly undermine that commitment.”
New York Delivers, a group funded by Amazon, also rallied with delivery workers who said they worried the bill’s passage would mean they’d lost their jobs, outside City Hall Thursday.
Menin at a Thursday press conference said the Council was in talks with the Mayor’s Office on the legislation and that she was “committed to working on it.”
“We’re working with the Law Department on some of the legal issues around the bill, so there’s more to come on that. It’s a process,” she said, adding that she was weighing how to make sure small businesses didn’t take a hit and that consumer prices would stay level if the bill were to pass.
Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, the bill’s sponsor, accused Amazon of skirting responsibility for safety issues, citing a 137% increase in truck-related injuries and crashes near last-mile facilities in New York City.
“They’re lining their pockets, but the second the conversation turns to safety, to worker justice, or accountability, they disappear, and the shell game is going to stop now because right now, the last-mile delivery apparatus — it currently functions like the Wild West,” she said.
Sean O’Brian, the Teamsters president, called Menin out for not bringing the bill to a vote.
“You need to do what the people want, the people that elect you, the people that employ you, the people that have put you where you’re at — that is union people, that is hardworking people in New York City,” he said. “Call for the vote.”