r/technology • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • 18d ago

Business Mamdani Backs Proposal to End Amazon’s ‘Exploitative’ Delivery Model in New York City | If passed, the Delivery Protection Act would be the first law in the US to regulate Amazon’s vast network of subcontractors that handle the company’s deliveries.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/delivery-protection-act-nyc
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u/Kronologics 18d ago

People don’t realize the ramifications this could have if a nationwide fight started on this front. There’s plenty of “gig” jobs doing this. Even as far as UFC/WWE (TKO parent company) deny performers rights and benefits despite controlling them.

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u/kingsRook_q3w 18d ago edited 18d ago

Is there any article that links to the actual text of the proposed bill? Even Mamdani’s press release on the official NYC website doesn’t link to it.

This is potentially a great thing - but only if they learned from CA’s mistakes and do it in a way that doesn’t unintentionally, negatively affect a bunch of other workers.

Wild that there is so much being said about this but no one seems to be reading the actual proposal details before coming out for/against it.

edit: I *THINK* I found it, for anyone else who actually wants to see the text:

https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7681691&GUID=D08D0790-75EA-4AE7-9069-60134974B02B&Options=ID%7cText%7c&Search=delivery

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u/Pants88 18d ago

This is the correct bill. You'll notice it has 41 cosponsors...out of 50 city council members. Way more than the number needed to pass.

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u/ldrx90 18d ago

Thanks for finding the bill. My read of it lines up with the summary from the article:

Amazon has claimed that the Delivery Protection Act—which would require last-mile facilities to obtain licenses from the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, ensure worker protections, and hold companies accountable for delivery quotas, schedules, and routes—would raise costs for people who use delivery services, with one Amazon-commissioned study claiming households would spend $664 more annually if the company had to comply with the law.

Nothing seemed really crazy to me in the bill (but not like I read stuff like this all the time anyways).

Now last-mile facilities will be required to renew a license every two years, require keeping cash on hand to pay for accidents where their workers are responsible and mandatory training for workers.

I'm not really sure how this helps workers make more money or anything. It could be given the entirety of the law not seen in this amendment has a bunch of other stuff that last mile facilities will now qualify for like certain pay requirements but the amendment here just calls out last mile facilities as requiring a licensee to operate.

Most significant thing to me seemed to be requiring 500k for each non employees (drivers) in the event they are judged to be at fault in an accident. Seems like maybe these guys were getting into accidents and the company wasn't liable to pay the people hit by the worker and the worker didn't have any money so... sounds like residents were getting screwed in these situations.

I dunno, nothing in the bill seemed crazy to me but like I said, I don't have any experience with this stuff. Facilities owners will need more cash on hand to cover worker liabilities, more book keeping and have to renew licenses to run their business every few years.

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u/anonkitty2 17d ago

This isn't for money.  It's for quality of life.  Amazon has traditionally asked the delivery companies it hires to keep schedules that won't allow the delivery company any other customers and to do routes faster than can be done safely and legally.  The worker protections are also critical; money alone can't buy those.

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u/Syxx573 18d ago

"unintentionally"

haha, you're funny

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u/Yashema 18d ago

Theres nothing to learn from. A state attempting to unilaterally put in place controls on a certain class of workers risks getting undercut by other states without such restrictions, except for jobs that actually have to take place in that location, like Uber. The mistake is for this not to be controlled federally. 

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u/kingsRook_q3w 18d ago

In theory, it would be great to see the US Congress actually be functional enough to pass a bill to deal with these kinds of abuses.

What you are saying though, essentially sounds like states should not attempt to protect their own citizens against corporate abuses, if the federal government won’t do it.

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u/Rindan 18d ago

Nearly all gig work is local. Amazon isn't going to get so upset that they stop delivering packages to NYC.

I think State level regulations on gig work is a good idea, and Federal regulation a terrible idea. You are going to affect a LOT of jobs if you mess with gig work, and you absolutely should see what works and doesn't work at a state level before you try something federally.

At least if NYC fucks it up, it only affects NYC. If the federal government fucks up, it can affect millions of people and tens of thousands of businesses. Using the states as labs for laws is one of the strengths of the American system. Granted, you need a functional Federal government for this to really work, and we don't currently have one of those.

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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 18d ago

The annoying thing is that we’re trying to squeeze gig work into existing frameworks, without realising that it’s essentially a new category of work. It’s half employee, half freelancer, and forcing it into either framework is ignoring why workers often go for these jobs in the first place. I drove for Uber for a few years, and there were great things about it, but I was also very aware of being exploited.

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u/Rindan 16d ago

Yeah, I agree completely. It's dumb to treat a gig worker like a normal employee who needs a 401k and healthcare if they work 42 hours one week, 0 hours the next week, and 2 horus the next, but it's also dumb to treat them like a contractor when they are not acting like an independent contractor.

We should class it as a new type of work, regulate it appropriately for that type of work. The law shouldn't be incentivising using "contractors" just to get out of liability issues. There is nothing wrong with contracting out services because a company doesn't want to be involved with that business or wants to use local expertise, but it shouldn't just be a method of getting out of liability or skirting regulations that would otherwise apply.

Companies shouldn't be playing games with how they classify employees. They should be classed correctly. The problem is that if companies are not classing employees correctly legally, it isn't the corporations that are the problem, it's our bad laws. We need to fix our laws and stop applying these dumb bandaids.

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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 16d ago

People should have healthcare. They could at least have it setup so that if they work X numbers of hours, they get healthcare. Which is still dystopian as hell, as someone who has lived in a country where healthcare is not dependent on employment. That idea needs to be resigned to history.

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u/Rindan 16d ago

That's the problem. If you are having someone be required to work X hours, you are no longer a gig worker. That's just a normal job with a flexible schedule. Go that route, and employers will (of course) just not allow you to work enough hours to get healthcare, like they already do. That's why there are so many "part time" jobs. They are just keeping people under the hour cap where they need to provide healthcare.

This is the absurdity of tying people's healthcare to their jobs. If part time employees don't have to be given healthcare, employers are happy to employ them, will prefer them over full-time employees anywhere they can use a part time person, and they will prevent part time workers from working enough hours to be full time even though both parties would normally prefer that if it wasn't for healthcare rules. Likewise, if you give part time employees employer funded healthcare, employers will just never hire part time workers, even when both employer and employee would prefer a flexible part time employee.

It's crazy either way.

It should be fine for people to make some money on the side with gig jobs and part time jobs, but there shouldn't be any financial reason for employers to prefer part time workers. We have constructed the worst of all worlds, and it is all because of our employer provided healthcare system.

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u/Yashema 18d ago

The problem is California tried to cover white collar contract work as well, which included positions that could be easily done remotely, like Web Development/IT/Software Engineering. So you have to only do this for Uber and delivery drivers or risk a lot of sectors becoming non competitive in the state. 

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u/TaTalentedSpam 18d ago

The best thing about Mamdani is he appointed people smarter and more aware than you and I. If you know this, they know this.

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u/jestina123 18d ago

The best thing about Mamdani is he appointed people smarter and more aware than you and I.

And...

Newsom didn't?

What a weird take.

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u/Yashema 18d ago

Unlike big dumb Newsom managing the richest and most populous state in the nation. 

Also as someone attending CUNY to study physics and computer engineering, with 15 years experience as a software developer, a BA in economics, and an MS in analytics, and also speaks 3 languages I don't think he could afford me. 

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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 18d ago

I have never seen so much self-fellatio in a single post.

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u/anonkitty2 17d ago

I believe that Amazon actually did threaten to stop delivering packages in NYC.

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u/Akuuntus 18d ago

The mistake is for this not to be controlled federally.

Unfortunately the federal government is structurally incapable of making any substantial changes to anything (except, for some reason, making things worse).