As NYC Debates Amazon’s Delivery Model, Its Partner Fires 200 E-Bike Workers

This just isn’t working.

Amid a heated Council debate over reining in Amazon’s business practices, the delivery giant threw 200 e-bike delivery workers off the job this week after canceling its contract with a Manhattan subcontractor, Streetsblog learned from one of the laid-off employees.

Employees of Kaizen Management Solutions, a Delancey Street delivery service partner contracted by Amazon to fulfill same-day deliveries on electric cargo bikes, got the news on Wednesday night.

“Approximately 200 employees will be impacted,” said a letter sent to workers, which Streetsblog has seen. The positions will be terminated on Nov. 18. Employees will receive benefits until Jan. 31.

One of the laid-off employees told Streetsblog that Kaizen owner Ezra Tilaye said the firings came after Amazon terminated its contract with the company, one of Amazon’s many delivery service providers. Tilaye did not immediately respond to Streetsblog’s request for comment.

Amazon confirmed to Streetsblog that it did indeed terminate Kaizen’s contract, prompting the mass layoff.

The sudden layoffs could be a violation of the state’s WARN act, which requires employers with more than 50 employees to either provide severance or give workers at least 90 days written notice before layoffs affecting more than 25 people.

The closure of one of Amazon’s contracted Delivery Service Partners is not new for the e-commerce giant, which, despite its omnipresent company branding, does not directly hire delivery workers, but instead relies on a network of small companies to hire workers to fulfill deliveries. Workers are often seen on e-bikes or in vans blazoned with the Amazon logo, but they are not directly employed by Amazon but by companies like Kaizen.

Since 2018, Amazon has terminated contracts with 35 DSPs in the state, resulting in the loss of over 3,500 jobs, a report from the Teamsters Union found.

The firings come at a critical moment for Amazon’s business model in the city. The City Council is currently debating a bill, the so-called Delivery Protection Act, that would require Amazon to directly hire its delivery workforce. Supporters, who include Mayor Mamdani, believe the change is necessary to prevent these types of sudden layoffs.

“Mass layoffs and WARN Act violations at … captive DSPs highlight that they are not bona fide independent businesses but pawns of a giant corporation that needs to be held accountable for their operations,” said Paul Sonn, state Policy Program Director at National Employment Law Project, which worked with the Teamsters on its report. “New York City’s proposed Delivery Protection Act would do just that — and the City Council should act swiftly to approve it.”

The union, which has been pushing hard for the bill’s passage, said the situation at Kaizen is a prime example of why the Council should “close the loophole” allowing Amazon to evade responsibility for such firings.

“Amazon has spent millions of dollars on ads falsely claiming that this law will kill jobs. In fact, Amazon is New York’s biggest job killer,” said Teamsters spokesperson Matthew McQuaid.

Mayor Mamdani has released two videos this month in support of the bill, which a super-majority of Council members support.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin (D-Upper East Side) is still not ready to bring the legislation to vote. She told reporters at a press conference last month that she was still working through the bill’s “legal issues” with the city’s law department.

The bill has major street safety implications. Supporters say direct employment would hold Amazon accountable for what happens on the street while workers are delivering packages.

The Alliance for a Greater New York, which supports the bill, created an interactive tool that shows that Amazon-associated delivery vans drew 14,290 tickets from cameras and traffic enforcement agents between July 2021 and June 2025. And Amazon’s vehicles can be seen parking illegally and obstructing bike lanes all over the city.

On the other hand, Amazon is also one of the leading companies transitioning from dangerous trucks to safer electric cargo quads. But the company has threatened to pull its e-bikes out of the city if the bill passes, Streetsblog reported last month.

Amazon told Streetsblog it terminated its contract with Kaizen because of safety issues. Company spokesman Steve Kelly sent over the following statement only after Streetsblog inquired:

The safety of our employees, partners, and the communities we operate in is our top priority. Over the past year in New York City, we’ve talked a lot about the steps we and our partners take to support safety, the high standards we hold ourselves and our partners to, and the progress we’ve made together.

When a partner doesn’t put safety first, we take action. An investigation found that Kaizen Management Solutions put several e-cargo bikes back on the road before necessary repairs were done. That put its employees and others at risk. The investigation also found multiple breaches of contract involving fraud, including failure to accurately record drivers’ hours worked.

As a result, we’ve ended our partnership with Kaizen. We’re supporting the company’s affected employees by connecting them with other DSPs in the area.