NYC Council Member Challenges ‘Last Mile’ Worker Exploitation Scam

NYC Council Member Tiffany Cabán (center) rallies with Teamsters this week in support of the Delivery Protection Act. Photos/Steve Wishnia

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By Steve Wishnia

Under the overhang of the Dinkins Municipal Building, City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán (D-Queens), joined by scores of Teamsters and various legislators, on Sept. 25 announced a bill that would require companies like Amazon to hire its delivery drivers as direct employees, instead of through subcontractors.

Amazon, Cabán said, uses its “delivery service partner” (DSP) subcontractors as “middlemen to dodge responsibility for the drivers wearing the uniform.” It dictates working conditions to the DSPs, but says it is not legally responsible for problems such as unsafe conditions, because they are separate entities.

Teamsters Local 804 member Fleming Knight told the rally that he was one of more than 100 drivers “unfairly chewed up, spit out, and dismissed” earlier this month when the company cancelled its contract with Cornucopia Logistics, one of eight subcontractors at its DBK4 delivery station in Maspeth, Queens.

“I wore an Amazon hat. I got an Amazon shirt. I got an Amazon vest. I drove a van with a big Amazon logo. When kids see me coming, they say, ‘Hi, Amazon man!’” Knight said. “But no, I don’t work for Amazon. Turns out I work for Cornucopia.” 

The Teamsters called the cancellation retaliation for the Cornucopia drivers joining the union. Amazon at the time said that was “misinformation,” because the drivers were not its employees.

The Delivery Protection act seeks to make “last mile” drivers direct employees with greater workplace protections.

The bill, the Delivery Protection Act, would cover companies that hire drivers to do “last mile” deliveries, from the distribution center to the individual recipient. In addition to making the drivers direct employees, it would also hold the companies responsible for driver safety; protect workers from retaliation for speaking up; and mandate safety training done by independent groups. It would also require last-mile delivery centers to have a city license, and would be enforced by the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. 

“Safety standards are a priority,” said Elvis Gallardo, a worker at Amazon’s DYN9 warehouse in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. The only safety instruction workers there get, he told the rally, is “one single video.”

A report by the federal General Accounting Office released in October 2024said that the transportation and warehousing sector, “which includes e-commerce warehouses and last-mile delivery,” had by far the highest rate of serious injuries among all 19 economic sector categories, with an estimated 3.8 cases of per 100 workers in 2022. For last-mile delivery, it said, the rate of serious injuries rose by 23% between 2018 and 2022, to 7.4 per 100—more than one out of 14 workers suffered one.

Those rates are likely underestimates. The GAO report said that its survey of 437 delivery workers found that they did not report more than one-third of serious injuries, particularly pain, soreness, cuts, and burns.

Amazon’s production quotas, Cabán said, are “so high that workers are forced to urinate in bottles,” and it tells drivers injured on the job to finish the delivery before seeking medical help.

CM Tiffany Cabán rails against companies like Amazon, Uber, and Lyft for attempting to reduce all work to “gig” work.

City Comptroller Brad Lander called the measure “a critical bill to protect all workers.”

Companies like Amazon, Uber, and Lyft “would like to turn all work into gig work,” he added. Amazon’s attitude is “we’ll pretend the people doing our deliveries are not our employees. Enough. We are not going to have this kind of practice in our city.”

Councilmember Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens), fresh from speaking at a rally by Uber and Lyft drivers on the other side of City Hall [[add link to story on that]], said those drivers “are going through a very similar crisis.” As they are classified as independent contractors instead of employees, the companies claim they are exempt from responsibilities such as paying minimum wage and following safety regulations.

Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas (D-Queens) said it’s important to pass the bill before the holiday season, peak delivery time, arrives.

The prospects for that are quite plausible. The bill already has 25 cosponsors, including Council Civil Service and Labor Committee chair Carmen De La Rosa (D-Manhattan).

Amazon’s owners, De La Rosa told the rally, are so rich that they can “rent islands for week-long weddings, while telling their workers ‘we don’t care if you can’t see five feet in front of your windshield.’”