Featuring Council Member Tiffany Cabán and Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine 

New York City, NY —  The American Economic Liberties Project and Teamsters Local 804 are joining forces for Last Mile / Safe Mile?,  a roundtable bringing together current and former drivers to talk about the safety and working conditions of last-mile delivery moderated by American Economic Liberties Project Senior Adviser Alvaro Bedoya, a former Federal Trade Commissioner.

Most Amazon delivery drivers wear an Amazon uniform and drive an Amazon truck, but they don’t actually work for Amazon. The deliveries run through a layer of supposed subcontractors. Amazon will set the rules, routes, and pay, holding drivers to grueling and inhumane quotas, and the small subcontractors hold the (limited) liability. Drivers, in turn, end up with the worst of both: total corporate control, zero corporate responsibility – and a shockingly unsafe working environment. This event is about hearing directly from the people living in that dangerous and degrading arrangement. 

New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine will attend the event. Cabán recently introduced the Delivery Protection Act taking on exactly these conditions, a bill Amazon has already spent upwards of $5 million to fight. 

To RSVP, please email Allie Gross at agross@economicliberties.us.

EVENT DETAILS: 

WHAT: Last Mile / Safe Mile? Roundtable Discussion 

WHEN: Thursday Sept. 24 / 5 – 6:30 PM 

WHERE: The Central Labor Council (350 W. 31st, New York, NY 10001)

WHO: 

• Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, District 22, New York City Council
• Commissioner Sam A.A. Levine, NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protections
• Former Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, Senior Advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project (moderator) 
• Teamsters Local 804 and dozens of delivery drivers

BACKGROUND

Amazon’s current delivery service provider (DSP) model lets the company control drivers’ routes, workloads, and delivery quotas while keeping them as subcontractors, shielding the three-trillion-dollar company from responsibility for drivers’ working conditions. This has left Amazon drivers — 200,000 nationwide — with lower pay and fewer paths to unionize. Meanwhile, drivers have reported being pushed to speed through routes and skip bathroom breaks; crashes near New York City last-mile facilities have indeed risen sharply. 

The Delivery Protection Act (Intro 518), which is sponsored by Council Member Cabán and has 34 co-sponsors, gained international attention last month when Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed the legislation in a viral video. Since its introduction, Amazon has lobbied to kill the Delivery Protection Act and bankrolled a $5 million campaign against it. At risk for the Seattle-based tech giant is the threat of a unionized workforce. When delivery drivers at an Amazon facility in Queens last year attempted to unionize, Amazon refused to come to the bargaining table, in part because the drivers were not technically Amazon employees. As long as drivers are employed by DSPs, Amazon can also simply stop doing business with third party contractors that vote to unionize.

New York City isn’t alone in casting scrutiny on Amazon’s abusive DSP practices. Across the Hudson, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport has similarly accused Amazon of abusing its market power over its delivery network to suppress driver wages and prevent contractors from competing for workers. Her complaint alleges that Amazon went as far as to use AI surveillance to retaliate against unionization efforts, fired organizing workers, and deployed drones near a facility where delivery drivers were attempting to unionize.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

The American Economic Liberties Project is an antimonopoly think tank and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C..

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters represent a diverse array of over 1.3 million workers in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.