Protecting workers and communities from harmful Amazon facilities
NYC’s LAST MILE PROBLEM
Amazon and the e-commerce industry have grown exponentially in the last decade. As a result, fulfillment centers or “last mile” warehouses — the final stop before a package reaches a customer’s doorstep — are cropping up all over New York.
Last mile facilities create increased truck traffic, noise pollution, and emissions that harm surrounding neighborhoods. Because of a history of racism and discrimination, these neighborhoods tend to be low income communities of color near ports and highways — areas already overburdened by the environmental and health impacts of the climate crisis. Over time, exposure to emissions from these facilities can lead to asthma, heart disease, and other serious illnesses; NYC has one of the country’s highest rates of hospitalizations and deaths due to asthma among children and young adults, with Black and Latino patients accounting for more than 80% of the cases.
Working in last mile facilities is also dangerous. Last mile delivery workers experience high rates of serious injury for low wages and with poor hours and impossible quotas, while drivers are subject to inefficient and excessive truck routes and unregulated subcontracting practices.
Without regulation, last mile facilities will continue to harm workers and communities while corporations like Amazon profit.
THE SOLUTION
To make New York’s last mile industry safe and sustainable, we must hold corporations like Amazon accountable, empower communities, and protect workers.
That will mean health and safety standards, a community review process so that facilities are not disproportionately focused in certain neighborhoods, and better conditions for workers, including fair hours, better wages, retaliation and work pace protections, and improved training.
WHAT’S NEXT
ALIGN and a coalition of unions and climate justice advocates are fighting to pass legislation regulating last mile warehouses with strong labor and environmental protections. In February 2025, Council Member Alexa Avilés introduced a bill (Int 1130) requiring the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reduce emissions from indirect sources, such as last mile warehouses, that produce harms from not just one source but many — traffic, noise pollution, and emissions from the facilities themselves.
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