Who, Exactly, Does New York City’s Delivery Protection Act Protect?
New York City has found an unlikely culprit for unsafe deliveries: the name on a driver’s paycheck. Its proposed cure would force Amazon to bring thousands of drivers in-house. The evidence that this would improve safety is thin. The implications for union organizing are anything but.
Last month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani formally endorsed the Delivery Protection Act (DPA), a City Council bill sponsored by Council Member Tiffany Cabán. Though framed as a warehouse-licensing and safety measure, the bill would also require Amazon to employ its delivery drivers directly rather than contract with independent delivery businesses.
Just six days before Mamdani’s announcement, New Jersey sued Amazon over substantially the same delivery arrangements. The state alleges that Amazon uses its control over Delivery Service Partners (DSPs) to suppress compensation and worsen working conditions, including by pressuring drivers to meet unsafe delivery expectations. The geographic markets alleged in the lawsuit include New York City.
Both governments portray Amazon as directing the work while DSPs bear formal responsibility. Yet New Jersey treats limits on DSP independence as part of the problem, while New York would virtually eliminate that independence. Different statutes explain the different legal claims, of course. But they don’t explain how substantially the same conditions and harms can result from too little DSP independence in New Jersey, yet be cured by eliminating DSPs as employers in New York.
That contradiction frames the DPA’s central problem. Its supporters haven’t shown that DSP employment causes the harms they cite, or that direct employment would reduce them. Amazon’s extensive safety programs further complicate the case for abolishing the DSP model in the name of safety. What the mandate would unquestionably change is how New York City delivery drivers unionize and who they bargain with.