Amazon could shut more than a dozen New York City delivery warehouses and eliminate thousands of local jobs if Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed labor legislation becomes law, according to industry specialists who spoke with The Post. The company has threatened such a move and, experts say, may follow through if the measure is approved.
Known as the Delivery Protection Act, the proposal would require Amazon to bring more than 5,000 New York City delivery workers onto its own payroll. Those employees currently work for independent companies that contract with Amazon. Supporters argue that direct employment would lead to higher wages and stronger safety standards for workers handling deliveries for Amazon, FedEx, DoorDash and other companies.
Amazon, however, does not directly employ delivery drivers elsewhere in the United States and has a long record of aggressively opposing changes to its labor model around the world. If the bill becomes law, analysts warn that Amazon could remove the delivery jobs from New York altogether. The company could also close its 15 last-mile facilities across the city, potentially costing another 2,000 warehouse workers their jobs.
Amazon’s response to a similar labor dispute in Canada is being cited as a warning. In early 2025, the company closed seven facilities in the Montreal area after a union organized roughly 300 employees at one of its last-mile warehouses in Laval.
By March 2025, approximately 1,900 workers at the seven sites, along with 2,800 delivery contractors connected to those facilities, had lost their jobs.
“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 logistics consultancy MWPVL International.
“When you look at Amazon’s global operations, they close buildings left, right and center when there is union activity,” Wulfraat said.
Property listings indicate that the former Montreal-area sites are now empty. Wulfraat said Amazon continues to pay rent on more than 1.6 million square feet of space, much of which was developed at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. At least two of the properties are being marketed for sublease.
The Delivery Protection Act was initially introduced by Queens Council Member Tiffany Cabán a year ago and brought back in 2026. It has attracted 34 co-sponsors in the City Council, though some members — including Speaker Julie Menin — are reportedly uneasy about the possibility of widespread layoffs, according to a source familiar with the talks.
The measure is expected to advance in some version, the source said, particularly because Mayor Mamdani supports it. But negotiations could ultimately produce legislation that leaves “both sides unhappy,” the source added.
One potential compromise would preserve the role of independent delivery contractors while imposing additional safety requirements on Amazon. The City Council has not yet set a date for a vote.
Labor and logistics experts say New York should pay close attention to the Quebec experience, even though Amazon’s New York operation is substantially larger. The company employs or supports more than 12,000 hourly workers in the city — over twice the number involved in its Quebec network.
That total includes roughly 2,000 warehouse employees and 5,000 delivery workers. The proposed law would not apply to the 5,500 employees at Amazon’s massive JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island. Those workers voted to unionize in 2022, marking the first successful union election at a US Amazon facility, but they have yet to secure a collective bargaining agreement.
Although Amazon employs unionized workers in Europe, the company has spent much of the post-pandemic period fighting organized labor in the United States. It is currently involved in legal disputes over alleged anti-union tactics in Bessemer, Alabama, and on Staten Island.
In April, the National Labor Relations Board directed Amazon to negotiate with the Teamsters representing Staten Island workers. Amazon has challenged that order in court while also questioning the authority of the NLRB.
“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.
The potential impact of the New York legislation is also a major concern for the 40 independent delivery companies that currently employ the city’s 5,000 Amazon drivers.
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“Look at what happened in Quebec,” said Kris Basmagy, owner of DashWave Delivery, which manages Amazon deliveries on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “There was pressure on Amazon’s model, and it pulled out.”
Basmagy, whose company employs 150 drivers, said Amazon could potentially relocate its New York operations to distribution centers being developed along the New Jersey Turnpike. “Nothing is stopping them” from doing so, he said.
Amazon remains involved in legal proceedings in Quebec and disputes the claim that its warehouse closures were prompted by the CSN’s union campaign. The union has taken its case to Quebec’s labor tribunal, but a CBC News report noted that even a finding against Amazon could result in little more than a fine and possible public criticism.
A class action lawsuit filed by an Amazon Prime customer in Quebec in February 2025 claims that the warehouse closures slowed Amazon’s delivery times beyond the one- and two-day guarantee for Prime service — with some deliveries instead taking as long as four to six days.
In May, a Quebec court ruled that the case can proceed. Still, plaintiffs who are seeking refunds admit the disruption only lasted about two months, according to the complaint. Amazon says service hasn’t suffered since a large Canadian logistics company, IntelCom, took over its Quebec deliveries.
“Then they got their act together and stopped the delays,” said Saro Turner, a partner in the law firm Slater Vecchio, which filed the suit.
In New York, Amazon maintains that delivery times and prices for customers would increase if it closed its warehouses. New York is “fundamentally different” from Quebec, where Amazon operated “far fewer sites,” according to Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly.
The company bankrolled a study by AKFR showing that the Delivery Protection Act would cost New Yorkers an extra $664 extra a year — or about $5.20 per package. That figure covers deliveries made by other companies, including FedEx and Doordash.
“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.”
Amazon deliveries in New York would slow permanently if it closed its last-mile facilities in the city, according to a source with knowledge of Amazon’s operations. Same-day deliveries and those that occur within hours of placing an order would take the biggest hit. The number of items that fall under the Prime promise would also shrink, this source said.
“There are a lot of same-day and same-morning deliveries in the city” that could arrive the next day, the source said.
Amazon’s last-mile facilities in Brooklyn and Queens include one in Red Hook at 270 Richards St. and another in Maspeth at 55-15 Grand Ave. Last-mile warehouses in Manhattan include an 87,000-square-foot facility at 706 11th Ave., according to a report on safety issues from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine.
“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,” said Brittain Ladd, a logistics and retail consultant and former Amazon executive. “This is about a model that could be copied in other cities.”
The delivery companies say they are the collateral damage in this struggle.
“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,” Basmagy said. “It’s as if we no longer exist.”
WGA Transit, which has actively recruited formerly incarcerated and homeless workers to deliver Amazon packages in Harlem, will be forced out of business if the Delivery Protection Act is enacted in its current form, owner Joe Artus told The Post.
“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.”