The International Brotherhood of Teamsters filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Labor on Tuesday accusing Amazon and 13 of its delivery subcontractors of closing depots without the advance notice the state requires, affecting more than 1,300 drivers.
The complaint was filed alongside a report the union released with the National Employment Law Project, the Action Lab and the Alliance for a Greater New York. In announcing the filing, the Teamsters said the report shows Amazon has closed 35 delivery subcontractors in New York since 2018, costing more than 3,500 jobs, and that 25 percent of all workers laid off in the state’s transportation and warehousing industry since 2023 have been Amazon drivers. The union estimates the company may owe as much as $11 million in back wages.
New York’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act applies to private businesses with 50 or more full-time employees in the state. According to the Department of Labor’s guidance, it covers closings affecting 25 or more employees, mass layoffs of 25 or more full-time workers where they make up at least 33 percent of a site’s staff, and mass layoffs of 250 or more full-time workers. Covered employers must give 90 days’ notice to workers, the state, local officials and school districts. Employers who do not comply may be required to pay back wages and benefits and a civil penalty.
What the drivers say happened
Amazon’s delivery fleet in New York is contracted out to more than 40 companies the retailer calls delivery service partners. The Teamsters’ filing covers workers whose depots shut down between September 2023 and October 2025, according to The City Reporter, which also reported cases in which subcontractors sent layoff notices after the closure had already happened.
One of them was Latrice Johnson, who delivered in Queens and Brooklyn out of the Amazon garage in Maspeth known as DBK4. Johnson told The City Reporter she was at home on a day off in August 2025 when a group chat with coworkers filled up: managers had told drivers clocking in that the site was shutting immediately. Official notice arrived days later in a letter from Cornucopia Logistics, the subcontractor she had worked for over two years. The state Labor Department’s WARN notice portal lists Aug. 20, 2025 as the garage’s closure date and Aug. 26 as the notice date.
“It was devastating. I was looking forward to going back in and making next week’s paycheck,” Johnson, a single mother, told the outlet. “You call me a top driver two months ago, and now you’re giving me the boot?”
Randy Korgan, director of the Teamsters’ Amazon division, said in the union’s statement that “Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy, and the rest of the crooks who run this company can’t find a labor law that they don’t want to violate.” Tom Gesualdi, president of Teamsters Joint Council 16, said that “in reality, Amazon has killed more jobs in the logistics industry than any other company in New York.”
Paul Sonn, state policy program director at the National Employment Law Project, said the pattern of layoffs at what he called Amazon’s “captive DSPs” shows “they are not bona fide independent businesses but pawns of a giant corporation that needs to be held accountable for their operations.” Irene Tung of the Action Lab said the company “is using a shell game to lay off delivery drivers without giving them notice as required under the law, then leaving them to fight for backpay they’re often never able to collect.”
Amazon’s answer
Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly told The City Reporter that the drivers were not Amazon employees and that the company bears no responsibility for its subcontractors’ operations, including “decisions about whether to close their businesses.” The subcontractors, he said, “are independent small businesses. They make their own decisions when it comes to hiring, fleet management, capacity planning and route assignments, and whether they want to work with other companies besides Amazon.”
Kelly said it is the subcontractors’ obligation “to comply with all applicable WARN laws,” and that Amazon asks them “to keep us informed so that if they do cease operations, we’re able to connect impacted individuals with other DSPs in the area who may be hiring.” Spokespeople for Cornucopia and the other named subcontractors did not respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the state Labor Department told The City Reporter the complaint was under review.
The bill behind the filing
The complaint lands while the New York City Council considers the Delivery Protection Act, sponsored by Council Member Tiffany Cabán of Queens. Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed the bill on Aug. 10. According to the mayor’s office, it would create a licensing system for last-mile warehouses run by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, set safety and training standards, and hold the company operating a facility responsible for employing the workers who perform core services such as delivery.
The mayor’s office cited a 2025 report from the New York City Comptroller finding that 78 percent of areas near last-mile facilities saw an increase in injury-causing crashes after those facilities opened, with crashes near large FedEx and Amazon warehouses in Maspeth up 53 percent and 48 percent respectively. It also cited a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation reporting that Amazon controls “which drivers [delivery subcontractors] can hire, when they work, where they drive, what they say, how they [dress] and much more.”
Theodore Moore, executive director of ALIGN, told the Amsterdam News that the bill had reached 34 Council sponsors, a supermajority, and that supporters expect a vote “sometime in the next few weeks.” Council Member Sandy Nurse called the bill one of the Council’s “top priorities” at a City Hall rally.
Amazon and business groups oppose the measure. An industry-sponsored study cited by the Amsterdam News said it could jeopardize more than 10,000 jobs and raise delivery fees, and Amazon has said its New York delivery partners include more than 40 local small businesses employing more than 5,000 people. The City Reporter reported that company representatives have said Amazon may consider pulling out of New York entirely if the law passes.
State lobbying disclosures obtained by New York Focus show Amazon made five payments totaling $5,001,377 between February and mid-May to the Five Borough Jobs Campaign, a business coalition affiliated with the Real Estate Board of New York. New York Focus reported that the coalition then spent $4.7 million between March and June under the banner of a group called New York Delivers, whose advertising says the bill would cost the average New York household $664 a year in extra delivery fees. That figure came from the consulting firm AKRF, which the disclosures show was paid $52,500 by the Five Borough Jobs Campaign this year. The coalition has reported lobbying all 51 Council members on the bill.
The bill has not been brought to a floor vote.
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