If you live in New York, you see Amazon workers in Amazon vests, delivering Amazon packages in Amazon vehicles, every single day. But did you know that none of these workers work for Amazon?
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If you live in New York, you see Amazon workers in Amazon vests, delivering Amazon packages in Amazon vehicles, every single day. But did you know that none of these workers work for Amazon?
For most New Yorkers, convenience is all we see when we shop online. Click, buy, delivered. But what feels so easy to us is hurting our neighborhoods and the workers in Amazon vests who make it happen.
The culprit? “Last mile” delivery centers, the giant hubs where companies like Amazon sort packages and send them to your doorstep. More and more of these have been popping up in New York.
For workers, Last-Mile jobs are among the most hazardous around. Delivery drivers and warehouse staff are pushed to meet impossible quotas. They work long hours for low pay. They suffer high rates of serious injury. And because companies like Amazon hide behind fake shell companies and pretend “subcontractors,” they dodge responsibility for unsafe conditions.
For communities, last-mile centers mean truck traffic, noise, and dirty air. These facilities are mostly placed in low-income Black and Brown neighborhoods — the same communities already suffering high rates of asthma, heart disease, and other pollution-related illnesses. Kids in these neighborhoods end up in the hospital while Amazon cashes in.
Ordering coffee pods and cute clothes online should not come at the expense of a child’s lungs or a worker’s safety. But right now, it does.
That’s why we’ve introduced two bills in the City Council to finally hold Amazon and other Last Mile giants accountable. The first is to crack down on the pollution these facilities dump into our air. The second, the Delivery Protection Act, will require companies to directly employ drivers and warehouse workers, protect them from retaliation, and ensure their safety on the job.
If New York is going to be a city where workers can thrive and families can breathe clean air, we need to secure the last-mile industry. We can care for each other and still have convenience. We can get our coffee pods and cute clothes without sacrificing other New Yorkers.
Tiffany Cabán (D-Queens) and Alexa Avilés (D-Brooklyn) are City Council members; Theodore A. Moore is the executive director of climate and labor organization ALIGN.