It's time Amazon played by the same rules as everyone else [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
It’s upbeat, it’s rational. It’s so good.
You could say the same about Trump, and no, this is not supposed to be a compliment.
That's true, both Mamdani and Trump are very effective politicians. One can disagree with either or both of their positions, but that doesn't mean that they're not good at it.
1 - https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7...
It connects the dots through - Amazon seems to be claiming their drivers are exempt from something due to being contractors, and this bill will enforce those undefined somethings to be enforced.
> This bill would require operators of certain warehouses and storage facilities from which goods are delivered to final consumers in the City to obtain a business license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. This bill would set forth the conditions of such license, which would include safety, training and employment requirements. This bill would also set forth enforcement options, including those available to the City and to workers.
The bill text itself seems to be more about hiring / firing practices than trucks.
Notice of termination was the 1 bill section not connected clearly to a problem in the video. The Delivery worker record-keeping and safety obligations and Worker training sections were about injuries and accidents clearly. The Direct employment section would prevent to transfer liability to contractors.
It’s an attempt to build political support for passing a specific piece of legislation. It’s not “vaguely defined”, it refers to a specific bill that he wants to pass that has legislative text available on the internet.
Or bribes.
As far as I can see from a literal 5 second google search:
- Liability for Injury at work is no longer on Amazon
- Liability for injuries caused by Amazon workers get shifted to the Worker, rather than Amazon (despite the fact that some of the conditions leading to that may come from Amazon themselves)
- It is harder to negotiate, as Amazon's official position is that "They do not work for us"
- It is easier to stop employment of sub-contractors.
The video already mentions this, but the idea of sub-contracting is that you are responsible for your own hours, routes, etc. This is clearly not the case for these workers.
Bottom line - just because Amazon doesn't directly have this liability - it doesn't mean nobody has this liability - the sub contractors do. And if they do, they need to pay for the insurance, and if they pay for the insurance, then Amazon has to pay them more to pay for this insurance.
So the real question is... what concrete harm/problem are we solving for that isn't already solved for today.
But my question for you is: Why do you think Amazon do this if it's not to specifically side track the exact things that I listed? If they were just paying the sub-contractor directly for that insurance? What would be the point.
Workers comp: "Workers’ compensation insurance is mandatory for most employers of one or more employees." https://www.wcb.ny.gov/content/main/Employers/workers-compen...
See NY State minimums here: https://www.geico.com/commercial-auto-insurance/states/ny/
And also Amazon requires insurance: Amazon Delivery Service Partners (DSPs) must independently secure and maintain comprehensive commercial insurance. Amazon does not provide this coverage for subcontractors. Required policies typically include $1M+ auto and general liability, workers' compensation, and cargo protection, with Amazon explicitly named as an additional insured.
i suspect the problems are:
subcontractors are small businesses that don't have the resources to cover those liabilities or fight lawsuits from customers, nor do they have the resources to fight amazon to make it pay their share.
maybe getting insurance is not enforced, so those who don't pay for insurance are cheaper.
amazon uses their negotiation power to demand favorable conditions for themselves from subcontractors.
The government has its own laws on things like minimum workers compensation insurance.
So the subcontractors are insured.
Amazon is subcontracting out delivery to smaller companies, for example ACME Logistics, LLC. Amazon tells ACME when things need to be delivered. ACME then hires delivery drivers, whether the individuals in vests are full-time/part-time/1099 independent is another thing. I doubt Amazon is hiring any 1099 workers directly, but I could be wrong.
There are insinuations here, and a good video, but it would be good to have actual examples and then an actual demonstration of a pattern of harm, before we introduce new rules that are likely going to make deliveries more expensive.
I understand that a YouTube video isn't a policy document... and I don't expect it to have all of these things. But as a citizen, I do expect - that somewhere - there should be an actual policy document that outlines the facts.
The hidden assumption is that there is some sort of responsibility that amazon ought to have, and that by shirking it, they're doing you harm. Instead of facts, they're listing things that give viewer a bad gut reaction like injury and accidents. The idea is already baked into the premise of the video, rather than propose a neutral question to the viewer; ala, at what level are a client responsible for the contractor's health and wellbeing. Why don't they ask this for tradies and plumbers?
This act is basically saying "Nope, we are considering them Amazon employees, so we can sue or fine Amazon for their actions regardless of name on employees paycheck or car registered owner." Also, if they combined into single company, it makes union actions much easier.
This happens with FedEx/UPS as well.
They’ve problem is that most of these are not really small businesses, in the same way that most Uber drivers aren’t really a small business.
They don’t drive a generic truck, they drive an Amazon branded truck, often an Amazon financed truck, often a vehicle specific to Amazon deliveries.
Can they use the Amazon-truck they financed from Amazon for non-Amazon deliveries?
I don't know, can they not? If that is the case then it's definitely problematic.
My memory is the DSP itself is not required to be exclusive to Amazon, but an Amazon branded vehicle can’t be used for purposes other than Amazon deliveries.
You're describing the "what" - you're not describing the "why" is that an issue...
Is "Joe's delivery company" not already required to have liability insurance? Do we think this insurance is not big enough? Should we make it bigger for all delivery companies or do we need to single out Amazon's liability insurance? Do we think that a delivery company delivering the same package for Amazon vs. FedEx vs. Mary's Flowers Inc. vs. NYC Movers Inc. should have a different amount of liability? (e.g., if that delivery driver injures a pedestrian, should we require that NYC Movers Inc. covers fewer costs than Amazon)?
I wouldn't say subcontracting is a bad thing always. It depends on reason for subcontracting and in this case, I'd call it bad since subcontracting is clearly to avoid liability for what is critical business function.
>Is "Joe's delivery company" not already required to have liability insurance?
Yes they are. It is enough? Not always. States are always trying to balance allowing protecting general public but not strangling small businesses. It doesn't always work out.
>Do we think that a delivery company delivering the same package for Amazon vs. FedEx vs. Mary's Flowers Inc. vs. NYC Movers Inc. should have a different amount of liability? (e.g., if that delivery driver injures a pedestrian, should we require that NYC Movers Inc. covers fewer costs than Amazon)?
This law would impact all those companies if they move their drivers into subcontractor. Amazon is getting called out because they are BIGGEST users of this system but no, they are not only ones.
1 - https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7...
I’m all about holding Amazon to the same standards, but what precisely does this accomplish? The subcontracting delivery companies already have to follow the same laws as every other company, don’t they?
The problem here is Amazon farms out delivery to these companies, set impossible delivery standards that require these subcontractor employees to do things that break the law OR cause damage to their health. However, since Amazon is technically not employing them, they have no liability.
Source? Is it actually physically "impossible", or simply a race to the bottom dynamic?
Also what are the harms that new rules introduce? Are you going to eliminate a bunch of new small businesses that do deliveries and replace them with everything being under one, giant, multi-trillion dollar company?
1 - https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7...
Why should the governor of South Dakota (pop 935,094) have more clout than the mayor of New York City (pop 8,804,190)?
By definition, the governor of NY is responsible for more people than the mayor of NYC, yet more people are familiar with the mayor and might not even be able to name the governor.
However, in that case, it's just a matter of delegation. When one city dominates the state, it will dominate everything about that state. So unless the governor of New York wants to spend most of their time handling New York City problems, it's best for them to let the mayor sort that.
What happens next year?
Edit: Surprise surprise, it wasn't. See other comment.
> Delaying payments of the city’s full pension obligation until 2037 from 2032 would save the city nearly $2.3 billion in the next two years, Mamdani said, without affecting retiree benefits. The reamortization schedule alters the original amortization plan constructed in 2010 that had the city pay higher amounts of its pension debt each year until the Fiscal Year 2032 cliff, at which point the entire obligation would be erased from the city’s books.
> Under Mamdani’s new plan, which will need approval from state lawmakers by June 30, the city would pay a similar amount each year until FY32 when it would decrease year over year for the final half-decade of payments.
> “If you look at the payment schedule that was initially agreed upon from 2010 to 2032, it's a payment that increases every single year, increasing upwards of $6 billion by the final year before then dropping like a cliff down to $0,” Mamdani said on May 12. “What we are proposing is extending that cycle by five years, and that is an extension that would ensure that we would pay the same amount every single year as opposed to what is currently a variable amount increasing year after year.”
> Pension experts have previously warned the city against executing a reamoritzation plan, arguing that it was a short-term fix that would saddle the city with big costs in the 2030’s. But Andrew Perry, director of fiscal research at the Fiscal Policy Institute, a finance think tank, argued in a blog post that the current amortization schedule is “poorly designed” — due to the escalating payments and dropoff in 2032 — and said Mamdani’s new plan is an “act of prudent fiscal management.”
> Ken Giardin, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan institute, argued the opposite, saying that the payment plan relies on the city’s five pension systems that “are hardly models of fiscal health," continuing to pump out positive returns.
> “The entire reason we're talking about the unfunded accrued liability is because the systems made excessively optimistic assumptions in the past—that's why NYC will already be paying off decades-old debt in the 2030s,” he said. "Mark your calendar for 2032, when city [politicians] will be wishing they hadn't done this.”
https://thechiefleader.com/stories/through-state-funding-new...
Yes, delaying pension contributions was absolutely a fudge, but it’s not like that was 100% of the gap for going from a large deficit to a balanced budget.
What if the DSP is a single-person company? Then the DSP and the driver are the same person. In that case, is it Amazon or the DSP requiring the driver to wear Amazon livery?
This matters if they do something and you go to sue them. All of sudden, you find out it's tiny company with only 1Million in assets and crappy insurance after they crash into a bus and cause brain damage. (https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15983591/teenager-lif...)
That sounds like an issue with the insurance regime rather than with amazon specifically. Targeting amazon might be politically expedient because of the current big tech backlash, but amazon delivery trucks aren't the only vehicles that can cause millions in damage.
Also, I'm not talking about what the law says, I'm asking if it's ethical.
Because we should construct our laws to favor ethical outcomes.
I mean, what if the law said that no matter what, I dunno, Target was responsible for all damages in the state. You'd shrug your shoulders and say "Well, that's what the law says".
If you paid someone to drive you to the airport, and the guy runs over a kid, should you be responsible? For the purposes of this argument, let's ignore the role of ride hailing platforms. After all, if it weren't for them you could have conceivably arranged it over craigslist or whatever.
I do not have the means to completely vet the person I hire. To ask me to do so is a bit insane. Especially for a one-off trip. Not to mention, the driver in your hypothetical would be the company providing the service.
I mean, look, you have to put all these caveats on your hypothetical. I can't hire a taxi, because then the taxi company would be liable. I can't Uber, because that's a whole mess of who's liable. Etc.
Things are different from me personally hiring a single ride to the airport and me operating a transportation company to shuttle people to and from the airport.
If someone paid me to find them a ride to the airport and the person I hired to do the job wound up running over a kid, then I would be liable. Because then I've taken on the responsibility of vetting the driver.
I thought the issue was that you want Amazon to be on the hook for damages, not that they didn't do enough vetting? You can do all the vetting you want, but people still can crash into kids.
>I mean, look, you have to put all these caveats on your hypothetical. I can't hire a taxi, because then the taxi company would be liable. I can't Uber, because that's a whole mess of who's liable. Etc.
If you're trying to imply nobody gets rides from craigslist and therefore we don't need to worry about this edge case, limos (think for weddings and stuff) are frequently by 1-2 man operations.
> If you're trying to imply nobody gets rides from craigslist and therefore we don't need to worry about this edge case
No, I don't know where you get that.
Why are you so hard up to protect Amazon from any liability?
They found a sort of loophole in the law. It's supposed to be self-regulating in a way, because being enormous means a lot of drivers and a lot of accidents so businesses get very picky about who is allowed to drive and how they drive. That falls apart when there's a bajillion drivers but they're made up of thousands of separate "delivery contractors" running fly-by-night businesses that the owners fully expect to die at some point and so don't leave any cash in and don't put improvements into.
E.g. I hear Walmart's trucking side is actually fairly nice and difficult to get into. They pay relatively well for the work and it's a cushier kind of trucking (more local, I think), which means everyone wants to work there and they have exacting standards for their drivers. They don't want insurance payouts.
Amazon seems notably different because it is _weirdly_ common to hear a story that goes something like "Amazon driver gets arrested for driving double the speed limit while high". The kind of thing that would trigger fleet-wide drug tests at most businesses, but is sort of a normal hum over at Amazon.
1785864306 | NJ files antitrust lawsuit against Amazon over delivery contractor control | https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/04/nj-amazon-antitrust-lawsuit-... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172003
It also makes sense for Amazon to push hard into drone delivery for NYC as a response, which I also support.
my view is that the burden is on the people making up new rules to show their rules are solving concrete actual harms... not just hand wave and say "well obviously Amazon's a [evil scare tone] TRILLION DOLLAR COMPANY" and let that be the end of the argument
Burden of proof is on those who want to make new rules that compel others.
The subcontractors can just fold as well, leaving drivers in the lurch.
However, Amazon gets to dictate everything else about the job. The subcontractors have no authority or autonomy, but are made responsible for the heavier costs of the process.
Amazon wants to have an employer-relationship when it comes to dictating terms, but a contractor-relationship when it comes time to giving benefits or resolving disputes.