Editors at National Review Online highlight another bad idea from New York City’s socialist mayor.
Progressives have long been happy to put their projects above consumer convenience. Their aversion to flexible labor markets, another hallmark of free enterprise, is a similiarly old story. In New York City, socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani has discovered how to merge both these tics into one destructive policy.
Mamdani endorsed a bill recently introduced in New York’s city council, the misleadingly titled Delivery Protection Act, that would impose a straitjacket licensing regime on package delivery services. To win permission to keep operating, warehouse operators would have to abide by myriad safety, training, and employment requirements. Most disruptively, it would mandate that operators directly hire their drivers, barring them from contracting out last-mile delivery.
Supposedly in the name of worker protection, the bill would effectively abolish an entire thriving industry of delivery businesses and sole proprietors. Both Amazon and FedEx rely on these independent contractors to carry packages to doorsteps (as opposed to UPS, which employs all its drivers).
Where most Americans see wonder in same-day delivery, Mamdani has only scorn. As he declares unabashedly, the Delivery Protection Act threatens the fundamental model that customers have come to depend on for efficient service. Amazon warns that it may relocate its warehouses outside New York City limits, meaning longer waits and pricier fees for residents. The jobs of Amazon’s 5,000 subcontracted delivery drivers, who earn $24 per hour on average, would also be put at risk. More certainly, all the small businesses that now employ them would be wiped away.
For what upside? It is not at all clear that the legislation would help the workers it purports to care for. Amazon and FedEx would be required to provide health insurance as drivers’ direct employers, but most already receive benefits from their existing third-party companies. Those firms must follow the same labor laws as the delivery giants.
