Zohran Mamdani just handed the Teamsters a gift worth $664 a year – taken straight out of every New York City household.
Amazon put Mamdani on notice about moving their delivery operations to New Jersey.
And Amazon just warned Zohran Mamdani that it will leave New York if he signs this bill.
The Bill Nobody Asked For
Intro 0518 – the Delivery Protection Act – would force Amazon to directly employ every worker performing last-mile deliveries inside New York City, eliminating the independent contractors who currently handle the work.
The bill was introduced by Democratic-socialist Councilmember Tiffany Cabán and immediately backed by Mayor Mamdani.
The Teamsters union is also backing the bill – and their fingerprints are all over it.
Amazon commissioned an independent economic analysis by consulting firm AKRF, and the numbers are brutal.
A full relocation of NYC delivery facilities would spike per-package costs by 267 percent.
https://twitter.com/FoxBusiness/status/2095209811574988934?s=20
Service levels would drop 10 to 21 percent.
And every New York City household would absorb an extra $664 a year in delivery costs – passed directly from the operational chaos Mamdani just created.
"As written, this legislation would put more than 40 [delivery service partners] and their 5,000-plus employees at risk," Amazon told Fox News Digital, "while likely resulting in slower, more expensive delivery for millions of New York City customers."
Who Actually Gets Hurt
Mamdani's team calls Amazon's delivery network "exploitative subcontracting."
Here's what that network actually looks like.
Twenty-five percent of Amazon's New York delivery partners are owned by black or Hispanic entrepreneurs.
Ten percent are veteran-owned businesses.
Another 10 percent are former Amazon delivery employees who worked their way up and bought the companies they drove for.
Christine Chan owns Highgate Logistics in Harlem – 175 workers delivering 5,000 packages a day by cargo bike, starting at $20 an hour, with no shortage of applicants.
Her message to the City Council: "You're betting that Amazon is going to employ these people directly.”
“I'll take the other side of that bet,” she added.
https://twitter.com/Newsforce/status/2095277053952045058?s=20
Rudy Cazares owns delivery companies serving Amazon and FedEx across the five boroughs.
"It's very easy to say it's workers against big corporations," Cazares said – but the city is full of independent businesses like his that form the backbone of the delivery industry.
The AKRF study found that 83 percent of last-mile facility workers live outside Manhattan – and roughly 80 percent are minorities.
Mamdani's "worker protection" bill would wipe out the jobs of the minority workers it claims to protect.
Seattle Already Ran This Experiment
This isn't speculation.
Seattle's Democratic Socialists pushed a $26-an-hour delivery driver minimum wage through their City Council – same ideology, same theory, same result.
DoorDash and Uber Eats immediately added a $5 surcharge to every order.
Seattle residents watched a $12 sandwich become a $32 delivery.
DoorDash recorded 1.7 million fewer orders in Seattle after the law took effect.
Drivers made no more money – and many made less because volume collapsed.
Former Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson later admitted: "We created a problem and it's our responsibility to fix it."
She didn't repeal it.
She asked to adjust the numbers.
New York City is watching Seattle's disaster in real time – and Mamdani's answer is to run the same play.
What This Is Really About
Amazon did not back down quietly.
The company put $5 million into the Five Borough Jobs Campaign to fight this bill – the largest lobbying expenditure Amazon has ever reported in New York State.
https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/2095501596863926380?s=20
Amazon is now evaluating moving delivery operations to New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester to escape the mandate entirely.
That means 10,000 jobs leave the five boroughs permanently.
It means minority small business owners who built companies from the ground up – often hiring workers who couldn't find employment elsewhere – get legislated out of existence to satisfy a union that doesn't represent them.
Andrew Cuomo said it plainly: "You keep taxing businesses and wealthy people in New York City, there will be nobody left."
The Delivery Protection Act is just the latest proof that Mamdani isn't protecting workers – he's protecting the Teamsters.
And New York City households are going to pay for it.
Sources:
- Kristen Altus, "Amazon Warns Mamdani-Backed Delivery Mandate Could Cost NYC Households Hundreds Every Year," Fox Business, September 2026.
- "Amazon Testimony: Delivery Protection Act," About Amazon, 2026.
- "Amazon Testimony: Delivery Protection Act – DSP Owner Voices," About Amazon, August 2026.
- Jon Miltimore, "Seattle's Law Mandating Higher Pay for Food Delivery Workers Is a Case Study in Backfire Economics," Foundation for Economic Education, May 2024.
- John Stossel, "Minimum Wage Fail," Daily Signal, June 2026.
- "NYC Official Warns Businesses Will Flee 'In Droves' If Democratic Socialist Candidate Wins Mayoral Race," Fox News, 2025.