{"id":186453,"date":"2026-04-05T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186453\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T17:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T17:03:07","slug":"new-york-is-closing-in-on-amazons-shady-delivery-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186453\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Is Closing In on Amazon\u2019s Shady Delivery System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon delivery drivers in New York wear the company\u2019s uniforms, follow its routes, and are tracked by its software. Yet, legally, they don\u2019t work for Amazon. The Delivery Protection Act<\/a> (DPA), a bill introduced by socialist New York City Councilor Tiffany Cab\u00e1n and with a committee hearing scheduled for April 9, would try to resolve that mismatch by requiring certain last-mile delivery facilities to be licensed by the city and, in practice, forcing companies like Amazon to take responsibility for the workforce they already direct. It is the next step in a series of city laws regulating the delivery economy \u2014 following minimum pay rules and workplace standards \u2014 that have improved conditions at the margins while leaving the structure of the system intact.<\/p>\n

That structure is not especially difficult to describe. Amazon runs a delivery network in which drivers\u2019 working conditions and schedules are determined by the e-commerce giant, yet they are formally employed by small contractors known as Delivery Service Partners (DSPs). The company determines how the work is done; the subcontractor absorbs the liability when something goes wrong.<\/p>\n

The arrangement has the advantage, from Amazon\u2019s perspective, of allowing it to present itself as both central and peripheral to the job, depending on the circumstance.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfessional drivers like me power New York\u2019s economy, but every day we have to deal with dangerous working conditions and an employer that acts like we don\u2019t even work for them,\u201d said<\/a> Luc Rene, a driver at DBK4, an Amazon facility in Queens. \u201cThe only way to stop Amazon\u2019s abuse of us and the communities we serve is to pass the Delivery Protection Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s an issue, Amazon can always say those drivers don\u2019t work for us,\u201d Antonio Rosario, an International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) organizer in the union\u2019s Amazon division, explained. \u201cBut when their drivers do something good, all of a sudden they\u2019re Amazon employees. You can\u2019t pick and choose. You have to be responsible to your workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same dynamic shows up in the day-to-day economics of the job. DSP owners operate under contracts they do not set, with rates and expectations that can shift, while drivers work under conditions they do not control. The costs accumulate in damaged vans, insurance premiums, fines, injuries \u2014 the steady wear and tear of moving packages through the city \u2014 while the company directing the system remains insulated from them.<\/p>\n

The DPA is written to collapse that arrangement by fixing responsibility in place. \u201cIt would hold Amazon accountable to their workforce,\u201d Rosario said. \u201cWhen you have your hands so deep into the operation \u2014 you have your claws sunk into it \u2014 you cannot pretend these drivers don\u2019t belong to you.\u201d He describes the subcontracting layer bluntly: the DSP owner, in practice, \u201cis no more than a low-level manager,\u201d with Amazon dictating wages, routes, and conditions. The bill\u2019s licensing requirement is central to that shift. If a company does not comply with the conditions attached to that license, it would not be allowed to continue making last-mile deliveries in the city. As part of the proposed licensing requirements, the bill also requires companies to give workers thirty-day dismissal notice before termination; protects them against retaliation from employers; and requires serious job and safety training by an outside organization.<\/p>\n

The IBT\u2019s organizing campaign has been working along the same fault line. The Teamsters have been building unions among DSP drivers by treating Amazon as the real employer behind the system \u2014 filing for union recognition, organizing strikes<\/a>, and pressing joint-employer claims before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In California, where some of those efforts have advanced<\/a> furthest, labor board officials have already found<\/a> that Amazon can qualify as a joint employer based on the degree of control it exercises over drivers\u2019 work, even as the company continues to contest those findings.<\/p>\n

The same question \u2014 who actually employs the drivers \u2014 now runs through both the NLRB cases and the New York City legislation. The DPA would not resolve that dispute, but it would shift the terrain on which it is being fought.<\/p>\n

Amazon is treating the bill accordingly. The company is lobbying city hall while running a parallel campaign to shape how the work is understood. It has tried to produce a more favorable account from within its workforce. A recent promotion<\/a>, offering $1,000 prizes to drivers who submit testimonials about why they like their jobs, frames the system as a matter of individual preference rather than one structured by quotas and surveillance. That messaging effort sits alongside a more direct push at elected officials.<\/p>\n

Responsibility for crashes, tickets, and injuries is pushed down onto the subcontractor \u2014 or the driver \u2014 rather than the company organizing the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are definitely going to city council members,\u201d Rosario said. \u201cThey are trying to manipulate the narrative.\u201d Amazon representatives have been bringing council members through delivery facilities, he said, with conditions staged in advance: \u201cThey usually have the place all cleaned up. . . . They want them to see it at their best.\u201d Workers are selected ahead of time to speak, and what is presented is a controlled version of the operation rather than the conditions drivers describe on the job.<\/p>\n

Cab\u00e1n has described that effort as coordinated. In a video about the legislation, she said<\/a> Amazon is deploying outside consultants, paid advertising, and a broader messaging campaign \u2014 a \u201cfull-court press\u201d against the legislation. The scale of the response reflects what is at stake. The bill has majority support in the council for a second time.<\/p>\n

For Amazon workers, the stakes extend beyond New York City. IBT leaders have framed the bill as a potential model for other jurisdictions, arguing that if it passes in New York, similar efforts will follow elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re confident that New York is going to be the first city in the country to get this done,\u201d said Thomas Gesualdi, president of Teamsters Joint Council 16. \u201cWe\u2019re in a new era of politics in the five boroughs \u2014 one where workers and their advocates are in the driver\u2019s seat \u2014 and this bill embodies that spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m committed to passing the Delivery Protection Act to protect New Yorkers from dangerous and exploitative last-mile delivery operations,\u201d Cab\u00e1n said. \u201cWith at least half a billion packages expected to be delivered to New Yorkers this year, it\u2019s no surprise that big corporations are fighting tooth and nail to defeat this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DPA is framed by its backers as both a labor measure and a public-safety one, tying workplace conditions to the streets those conditions run through \u2014 traffic, curb use, emissions \u2014 and addressing a regulatory gap that has allowed last-mile facilities to expand with relatively little oversight. A recent New York City Comptroller\u2019s Office report<\/a> on last-mile delivery impacts links the growth of those facilities to increased traffic risks and workplace hazards and recommends clarifying responsibility for the system as it exists. The DPA follows that logic by fixing responsibility in place.<\/p>\n

The answer is not purely technical. The bill\u2019s path runs through city hall, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani has positioned himself in favor of regulating<\/a> the delivery industry and supporting delivery workers, winning<\/a> significant wage settlements for workers and directing city agencies to pursue additional enforcement. At this stage, the DPA has not been a central priority of the administration, which is not unusual for a bill still moving through committee, but whether the mayor\u2019s office decides to intervene more directly will matter as the vote approaches. The earlier round of delivery legislation showed that the council can move despite industry opposition; this bill goes further, into the structure of the employment relationship itself, and has drawn a response from Amazon to match.<\/p>\n

What the bill targets is a system built on a separation that is visible in the work itself. Drivers move through dense neighborhoods under pressure to meet quotas set by software they do not control, while responsibility for crashes, tickets, and injuries is pushed down onto the subcontractor \u2014 or the driver \u2014 rather than the company organizing the system. The work is already organized this way; the DPA simply assigns responsibility for it.<\/p>\n