"Delivery Protection Act": New York Mayor Mamdani and Teamsters Union Take On Amazon

The Teamsters union, which represents Amazon workers, along with the Alliance for a Greater New York and representatives of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), rallied outside New York City Hall to demand passage of the Delivery Protection Act, a bill backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The bill would require Amazon to hire all drivers handling the "last mile" of delivery — the final leg where packages reach customers — directly as company employees rather than through subcontractors.

The bill would bar Amazon, FedEx and other logistics companies from using third-party contractors for last-mile delivery and core warehouse operations across all five New York boroughs. It is backed by the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO-affiliated New York City Central Labor Council, and a majority of City Council members. Lined up against it is a broad business coalition — Amazon, FedEx, logistics and freight companies, chambers of commerce from all five boroughs, the National Federation of Independent Business, Tech:NYC, the Supply Chain Federation, the Trucking Association of New York, the Five Borough Jobs Campaign and other groups. According to a study commissioned by that coalition, if the bill becomes law, New York families' annual delivery costs would rise by $664, and more than 10,000 jobs across the city would be put at risk.

The bill was first introduced last September by Queens Council Member Tiffany Cabán and has been carried over to 2026. Under its terms, any facility handling last-mile delivery in the city would need a license, and all delivery and warehouse centers would be required to staff up with direct employees rather than contract workers. Supporters argue that Amazon relies on its third-party Delivery Service Provider (DSP) model to "underpay workers, look the other way on unsafe conditions, and dodge accountability when the law is broken or the public is put at risk."

"Corporations like Amazon are building billion-dollar business models by dodging accountability through an exploitative contracting system," said Mayor Mamdani. "It's time to end this subcontracting model that puts profit over people and build an economy that serves everyday New Yorkers."

Amazon, for its part, contends that if the bill becomes law it would hurt more than 40 Delivery Service Providers and put over 5,000 jobs at those small-business partners at risk. In an April statement, the company said DSP drivers earn an average of nearly $24 an hour, and that full-time drivers receive health insurance and paid time off above the city's minimum requirements. Amazon also pointed to more than $2.5 billion it has invested in safety programs since 2019, including its Last Mile Driver Academy, which has trained over 180,000 drivers, camera-equipped delivery vehicles, and more than 800 electric cargo bikes deployed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The company warns that if the bill passes, it could be forced to relocate 10 of its distribution centers outside New York, which would lengthen delivery times for customers.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board views the Delivery Protection Act as a testing ground for the Teamsters and its allies in their broader campaign to dismantle contract-based delivery work nationwide. As evidence, the paper points to United Parcel Service's layoffs of tens of thousands of employees, citing the costs of the labor contract UPS signed with the Teamsters in 2023 as one factor behind the cuts. The editorial states: "Killing off the independent-contractor model has long been a goal of the political left, and they don't much care if small businesses get crushed along the way."

This is not the first clash between Amazon and New York's political establishment. In 2019, the company scrapped plans to open a second headquarters in Queens after facing opposition from local politicians and activists — a decision estimated to have cost the city around 25,000 high-paying jobs.