Mamdani Administration Backs ‘Delivery Protection’ Law Opposed By Amazon-Backed Coalition

Amazon-backed groups pulled out all stops on Thursday to fight a City Council bill that would force e-commerce companies to directly hire and pay delivery workers, as Mayor Mamdani’s administration officially endorsed the proposal for the first time.

New York Delivers — a coalition of various trade groups and powerful chambers of commerce in the five boroughs with ties to Amazon — bused in dozens of owners and employees of Amazon’s so-called Delivery Service Partners to rally and testify at City Hall against Intro 518, dubbed by supporters the “delivery protection act,” a union-backed bill that seeks to end the street havoc and exploitation of workers caused by the current third-party employment model, advocates say.

The coalition provided DSP workers with $70 in Uber vouchers to get them to and from the Council’s hearing on the bill. Workers who wear Amazon uniforms and drive Amazon-branded vans while delivering Amazon goods, don’t technically work for the e-commerce giant, but the third party Delivery Service Partners or DSPs.

“Last-mile facilities frequently subcontract much of their core delivery work instead of hiring their own employees to do the work,” Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Chief of Staff Carlos Ortiz testified on Thursday. “This model externalizes costs, as well as liabilities, which can lead to labor violations and the exploitation of workers in unsafe working environments.”

That model allows Amazon to skirt responsibility for the driving behavior of workers delivering its products, according to critics whose ranks now include the DCWP, which backed the bill at Thursday’s hearing. The streets surrounding 14 out of the 18 newest last-mile warehouses experienced a 10-percent increase in crashes, the city comptroller’s office reported last year. In Maspeth, Queens, crashes rose by 53 percent and 48 percent, respectively, around two DSP locations.

New York Delivers bused in workers for Thursday’s rally and hearing from two DSP facilities in the Bronx, Cazar Logistics and AlphaLogix Delivery, according to a coalition document obtained by Streetsblog. New York Delivers does not list Amazon as a sponsor, but the retail giant does sponsor several of its member organizations: Amazon is listed as a “major” sponsor of the Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx chambers of Commerce, while the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce includes the company in its “Chairman’s Circle.”

Streetsblog asked multiple workers whether they’d been subsidized to attend the Thursday’s pro-DSP rally; all either refused to answer or said they didn’t know. (The document obtained by Streetsblog advised rally attendees not to speak to the press.)

A rep for New York Delivers, meanwhile, professed ignorance of how DSPs convinced their employees to attend — but did not deny that workers had received compensation to attend.

“Those are decisions made between companies and employees,” said spokesman Tommy Kaelin, of the D.C.-based Glen Echo Group. “If local businesses chose to compensate their drivers who wanted to be here, it’s because they value their time and understood they would have to miss work.”

Amazon is far from hands off when it comes to its supposedly third-party delivery partners: The company recently offered drivers $1,000 to submit testimonials about why they like their jobs. New York Delivers solicits similar stories on its website. (A rep for Amazon said the testimonial program predated the Council’s regulatory push and is not “motivated by external factors.”)

Supporters of Intro 518, who also rallied outside City Hall on Thursday, said requiring companies to directly employ workers would increase street safety, curb on-the-job injuries and make multi-billion corporations like Amazon liable for the behavior of their drivers.

The bill would require companies to pay a $500 two-year licensing fee for each warehouse. Contracting with third parties would be prohibited. Companies would have to keep driver safety records and create trainings to teach them how to “ensure the safety of pedestrians while making frequent stops” and “identify bicycle routes and protected bike lanes and how to avoid making stops along such routes.”

In addition to the Comptroller’s report about increased crashes near last-mile warehouses, a report by Teamsters Local 804 argued that the proliferation of “last-mile” warehouses made city streets less safe partly because of rampant illegal parking with little consequences, but also because the algorithm-driven companies pressure workers with quotas, leading to high driver turnover.

Amazon is “obsessed with speed,” one former worker testified to City Council members.

“I witnessed first hand how Amazon’s obsession with speed endangers drivers and the public,” said Ira Pollack, who worked for Amazon in traffic control directing drivers at warehouses in Queens from 2019 to 2025. “In a rush to get packages on the road as quickly as possible, Amazon — managers, not just the DSP owners — sends vans speeding all over the loading area where workers are on foot. … I’ve seen managers yell at drivers to hit the gas while other workers are still loading those same vans. In the chaos, I’ve seen drivers hit posts, back into walls and almost hit pedestrians.”

Last-mile warehouses are a relatively new challenge for the city to regulate. Around 40 exist in the five borough, according to testimony from DCWP — clustered in neighborhoods like East New York and Red Hook in Brooklyn and Maspeth in Queens.

New York Delivers claims that the bill will make delivery more expensive for city residents and put the almost 5,000 delivery drivers who work for DSPs out of a job. But the bill includes an employee retention clause — meaning Amazon will have to offer DSP workers jobs “to perform the same work they had previously performed.”

Only one chamber of commerce responded to a request for comment. Manhattan Chamber of Commerce President Jessica Walker denied that Amazon had influenced her organization’s position on the bill.

“Our positions are determined by our analysis of what’s best for our members and the city we serve. Amazon is a member of our Chairman’s Circle, along with many other companies,” Walker said. “Our position on Intro 518 is independent of any single member.”

Amid multiple attacks on its business model and its practices, Amazon has threatened to move its warehouses out of the city if the bill passes.

Politicians at the Teamsters rally did not take the threat seriously.

“We aren’t asking for Amazon to leave,” said bill supporter Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “[Amazon] makes billions on billions every year, the least you can do is have a standard that matches the profit margins. You could be the best employer in the city of New York.”