Mamdani opens a front against Amazon: demands direct employment of more than 5,000 couriers
New York City Council member Zohran Mamdani has announced his support for a bill requiring Amazon to hire couriers as direct employees. The move aims to curb exploitative employment models in the gig economy.
New York City Council member Zohran Mamdani is opening a front against Amazon: he announced that he would support a bill that would require the company to employ couriers as direct employees, rather than as contractors. According to the bill, which was placed on the City Council's table earlier this year, companies operating logistics centers for package delivery in the city will be required to obtain a license from the municipality.
To obtain this license, they will be required to meet new safety, training, and employment requirements, primarily the direct employment of thousands of package couriers operating in New York. On Monday, Mamdani announced his support for the bill, which he said would limit the power of delivery giants like Amazon and prevent them from operating exploitative employment models.
"Corporations like Amazon have built billion-dollar businesses using models that insulated them from accountability through systems of exploitative subcontractors," Mamdani said in a press release. "As the number of last-mile delivery centers has skyrocketed across New York, so too have the numbers of traffic accidents and worker injuries. The bill will protect couriers and the communities where these centers operate, and ensures that the corporations that benefit from the workers' labor are responsible for the consequences of their business activity. New Yorkers should not have to subsidize corporate profit with less safe streets and more dangerous jobs. The people who enable these companies to operate deserve respect, stability, and a safe workplace."
Amazon, in response, threatened to consider moving its delivery centers outside of New York if the bill is passed, and warned that it puts the jobs of more than 5,000 contract workers at risk. According to the company, these workers earn an average wage of almost 24 dollars per hour (the minimum wage in the city is 17 dollars per hour, and the living wage is estimated at about 28 dollars per hour at the lower end).
It is unclear how significant Amazon's threat is. The last mile is one of the most complex issues in package delivery and is considered the most expensive component in the delivery chain. Establishing small delivery centers within cities allows companies to significantly optimize the last-mile stage. Moving the centers out of the city would create not only significant costs for the company, but would also significantly increase its delivery times.
Amazon also claimed that since 2019 it has invested billions of dollars in safety programs, and that between 2024 and 2025 the number of serious accidents involving contract courier workers dropped by a third. "We are committed to creating good jobs, supporting thousands of employees and our small business partners in New York City, and providing fast and affordable delivery in a safe work environment," it was stated according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The bill in New York is part of a series of efforts by cities and states in the US to deal with the gig economy model, which has disrupted the traditional labor market and allowed companies like Amazon, Uber, and DoorDash to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue supported by models that remove from them the direct responsibility for employing the core workers of their operations. In 2019, California passed a precedent-setting law that required gig economy platforms to work toward a direct employment model for their drivers and couriers. However, the companies launched a lobbying and PR offensive with an investment of millions of dollars, and in 2020 they managed to overturn the law through a state referendum. Last week, New Jersey sued Amazon, claiming that the company used its dominance in the package delivery field to harm the wages and working conditions of thousands of delivery drivers, while preventing them from unionizing. Amazon denied the allegations.
