Amazon Quietly Bankrolled $5 Million Campaign Against NYC Delivery Bill

In fact, however, the delivery giant Amazon appears to have funded most of the group’s opposition, according to new disclosures filed with the state last week.

A disclaimer says the ad was paid for by the Five Borough Jobs Campaign, a longstanding coalition of industry groups and chambers of commerce, affiliated with the Real Estate Board of New York, that pushes for pro-business policies. Nearly all of the group’s funding this year has come from Amazon.

Amazon’s donations to the Five Borough Jobs Campaign, which amount to $5 million, are by far the biggest that the company has ever reported making to a lobbying effort in New York state.

The bill would require Amazon and other companies that own so-called last-mile delivery facilities — smaller warehouses where packages are prepared for delivery — to directly employ their drivers and some warehouse workers. It would also require the facilities to be licensed by the city, which would make New York the first city in the country to impose such a policy. As it stands, Amazon does not directly employ its more than 200,000 drivers nationwide, even as they wear the company’s branded uniforms and drive branded trucks. Instead, it contracts with third-party companies called delivery service providers, or DSPs, who employ the workers.

Critics say that setup allows Amazon to escape liability for crashes and worker injuries and to suppress union organizing; they argue that direct employment would make the company more accountable for working conditions. Amazon says the bill would threaten the existence of more than 40 locally owned DSPs in the city and the jobs of their 5,000 employees, because it may not rehire them, and that it would consider moving its delivery facilities out of the city if the bill passes.

Between February and mid-May, Amazon made five payments totaling $5,001,377 to the Five Borough Jobs Campaign, the new disclosures show. 

In turn, the Five Borough Jobs Campaign reported spending $4.7 million between March and June under the banner of New York Delivers and another $316,000 that did not go to the coalition. No other group has reported spending on behalf of New York Delivers.

Nearly all of that money appears to have come from Amazon: The Five Borough Jobs Campaign had only $121,405 in assets at the end of 2024, and only received $161,800 in donations last year, from a different REBNY-affiliated group.

The result has been a monthslong media blitz. On behalf of New York Delivers, the Five Borough Jobs Campaign has run ads on social media and sponsored newsletters, including Politico’s New York Playbook, claiming that the legislation would cost the average New York household $664 in additional delivery fees each year. (That figure came from a study by the consulting firm AKRF, which was paid $52,500 by Five Borough Jobs Campaign this year, the disclosures show.)

The bill has momentum, with support from 31 of the City Council’s 51 members — enough for it to pass if it went up for a vote. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration voiced support at an April hearing, and Council Speaker Julie Menin signed onto a previous version of the bill last year, though she has not yet taken a position this year. Menin’s office said the bill is still moving through the legislative process and did not say when a vote might be scheduled.

“Of course national companies, like Amazon and FedEx, are supporting the New Yorkers speaking out against a bill that would destabilize an integral infrastructure system for NYC, putting jobs at risk and raising costs for New Yorkers,” added the spokesperson, Tommy Kaelin.

New York Delivers has foregrounded DSP owners like Rudy Cazares, who owns a Bronx-based logistics company that contracts with Amazon. Cazares said the bill would “destroy” his business, since it would prohibit the third-party model his company relies on. He argued that there was no guarantee that Amazon would rehire his more than 100 employees.

“We were fortunate in that we had the support of Amazon, and we’ve got the support of other companies that are against this bill,” Cazares said. 

Other donors to the Five Borough Jobs Campaign this year include FedEx, the logistics company Prologis, and the Trucking Association of New York, which all oppose the bill. Those other donations totaled about $173,000, or the equivalent of about 3 percent of Amazon’s contributions. The campaign has reported lobbying all 51 council members on the bill this year, disclosures show.

Tiffany Cabán, the Queens city councilmember who sponsors the bill, said Amazon has tried to obscure its involvement by making the opposition appear grassroots.

“They use this sort of PR campaign to try to say, ‘Well, no, we’re not the big bad corporation. We’re actually a group of small businesses,’” Cabán said. “We’re seeing what was clear all along: that one of the most powerful and profitable companies in the world is spending millions and millions of dollars to block common-sense regulations that would, writ large, make New Yorkers safer.”

Cabán dismissed Amazon’s threat that the bill could slash driver jobs or prompt the company to move its last-mile facilities out of the city, noting that such a move would run counter to Amazon’s goal of increasingly rapid deliveries.

“Their entire business model is predicated on being as close to the consumer as possible,” Cabán said.