Amazon has warned it may shutter more than a dozen warehouses and relocate thousands of workers out of New York City if Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Delivery Protection Act becomes law.
The bill, first introduced by Queens Council Member Tiffany Cabán and reintroduced in 2026, would force the e-commerce giant to directly hire roughly 5,000 delivery workers currently employed by third-party contractors across the five boroughs. Proponents argue the measure would boost pay and improve safety at Amazon and other delivery firms including FedEx and DoorDash.
Industry experts who track Amazon’s global labor strategy say the company is likely to follow through on any threat to protect its business model nationwide. “Amazon will retaliate, because it has to send a firm message to the rest of the country that ‘If you mess with us, this is what will happen,'” said Marc Wulfraat, president and founder of Montreal-based logistics consulting firm MWPVL International. “When you look at Amazon’s global operations, they close buildings left, right and center when there is union activity.”
That warning carries weight given Amazon’s recent actions in Quebec. Early last year, the company closed seven warehouses near Montreal after the Confédération des syndicats nationaux organized 300 workers at a Laval facility. By March 2025, some 1,900 Canadians across those warehouses and 2,800 delivery contractors had lost their jobs. Real estate listings now show the Montreal facilities vacant, with Amazon still paying rent on more than 1.6 million square feet of space it spent hundreds of millions to build, according to Wulfraat. At least two are being offered as subleases.
The potential New York fallout would hit far more workers. Amazon employs directly or indirectly more than 12,000 hourly workers in the city — more than twice its Quebec footprint — including 2,000 at last-mile warehouses and 5,000 delivery workers. The legislation would not affect 5,500 workers at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, who voted to unionize in 2022 but still lack a collective bargaining agreement.
Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly pushed back on direct comparisons between the markets. “New York City is one of the largest and most complex delivery regions in the country,” Kelly said in a statement. “It’s best served by a network of local small businesses deeply embedded in their communities and leveraging our operations infrastructure.”
The company commissioned a study by AKFR claiming the Delivery Protection Act would cost New Yorkers an extra $664 annually — about $5.20 per package — covering deliveries from Amazon, FedEx, DoorDash and others. Amazon also maintains that delivery times and prices would rise if it closed its warehouses, with same-day and rapid deliveries taking the biggest hit. “There are a lot of same-day and same-morning deliveries in the city” that could arrive the next day, a source with knowledge of Amazon’s operations said.
The 40 independent companies employing those 5,000 delivery workers fear they are collateral damage. “Look at what happened in Quebec,” Kris Basmagy, owner of DashWave Delivery, which handles Amazon’s deliveries on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, told The Post. “There was pressure on Amazon’s model, and it pulled out.” Basmagy, who employs 150 delivery workers, noted that nothing prevents Amazon from shifting to “warehouses being built along the New Jersey Turnpike.”
WGA Transit owner Joe Artus, whose company has recruited formerly incarcerated and homeless workers to deliver Amazon packages in Harlem, said his business would collapse under the bill. “I have a 21-month-old daughter,” Artus told The Post. “If this thing passes, there is no way for my company to exist or to keep my 189 employees.”
The bill has strong City Council support with some 34 co-signers, though several including Speaker Julie Menin are “uncomfortable” with potential job losses, a source close to negotiations said. “This bill will have to pass in some form,” particularly given Mamdani’s backing, the source told The Post, adding that the final result may make “both sides unhappy.” Compromises under discussion would allow independent contractors to continue deliveries while requiring Amazon to provide more safety guarantees. No vote has been scheduled.
Amazon’s labor battles extend well beyond New York. The company employs unionized workers in Europe but has fought organizing efforts in the US since the pandemic, including allegedly hardball tactics in Bessemer, Alabama, and Staten Island. In April, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Amazon to bargain with the Teamsters in Staten Island, though Amazon has filed lawsuits challenging the NLRB’s legitimacy. “Amazon will say or do whatever it takes to deny workers stronger rights and wages and abdicate its responsibilities for its own employees,” the Teamsters said in a statement.
Amazon is still litigating in Quebec, where it denies closing warehouses due to CSN organizing. The union filed a complaint with Quebec’s labor tribunal, but even a violation finding would bring at most a fine and potential consumer backlash, according to a CBC News report. A class action by a Prime customer claims warehouse closures slowed deliveries beyond the one- and two-day guarantee for about two months, with some taking four to six days. A Quebec court allowed the case to proceed in May, though plaintiffs seek only refunds. Amazon says service recovered after Canadian logistics firm IntelCom took over Quebec deliveries.
Brittain Ladd, a logistics consultant and former Amazon executive, said the company would not hesitate to exit New York if threatened. “Amazon wouldn’t blink about shutting down the 15 facilities in New York City if it felt that the legislation was a threat to its business model,” Ladd said. “This is about a model that could be copied in other cities.”
Basmagy said independent operators feel erased from the debate. “There is a laser focus on punishing Amazon no matter what the repercussions might be, what it does to us as business owners, fathers and husbands,” he said. “It’s as if we no longer exist.”
No vote on the Delivery Protection Act has been scheduled.