Amazon is threatening to close more than a dozen warehouses and eliminate thousands of jobs in New York City if Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed labor legislation becomes law. Industry experts told The Post the e-commerce giant could follow through on that warning if the measure is enacted.

The Delivery Protection Act would require Amazon to directly employ more than 5,000 delivery workers across the city who currently work for third-party contractors. Supporters argue the bill would raise wages and strengthen safety standards for workers at Amazon and other delivery companies, including FedEx and DoorDash.

Amazon, however, does not directly employ delivery drivers elsewhere in the United States and has a long record of aggressively opposing changes to its labor model at home and overseas. Experts say the consequences could extend beyond the 5,000 delivery positions: Amazon might also shut its 15 last-mile warehouses in New York City, putting another 2,000 employees out of work.

Amazon’s response to a labor dispute in Quebec offers a possible preview. Early last year, the company closed seven warehouses near Montreal after a union organized 300 employees at a last-mile facility in Laval.

By March 2025, roughly 1,900 workers at the seven warehouses had lost their jobs, along with 2,800 delivery contractors who served those facilities.

“Amazon will retaliate, because it has to send a firm message to the rest of the country that ‘If you mess with us, this is what will happen,’” said Marc Wulfraat, president and founder of Montreal-based logistics consultancy MWPVL International.

“When you look at Amazon’s global operations, they close buildings left, right and center when there is union activity,” Wulfraat said.

Real estate listings show the Montreal properties are now empty. Wulfraat said Amazon continues to pay rent on more than 1.6 million square feet of space that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. At least two of the facilities are being marketed for sublease.

The Delivery Protection Act was first introduced a year ago by Queens Council Member Tiffany Cabán and reintroduced in 2026. It has the backing of about 34 City Council co-sponsors, though some members — including Speaker Julie Menin — are uneasy about the possibility of widespread job losses, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

“This bill will have to pass in some form,” the source told The Post, particularly because the mayor supports it. But the final version could leave “both sides unhappy,” the source added.

One proposal under discussion would allow independent contractors to keep making deliveries while requiring Amazon to adopt stronger worker-safety protections, the source said. The City Council has not scheduled a vote.

Industry observers say the Quebec case provides a clear warning for New York, even though Amazon’s New York operations involve more than 12,000 hourly workers — over twice the number the company employed directly or indirectly in Quebec.

That workforce includes approximately 2,000 warehouse employees and 5,000 delivery workers. The proposed law would not cover the 5,500 workers at Amazon’s massive JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island. Those employees voted to unionize in 2022, marking the first successful union election at a US Amazon facility, but they still do not have a collective bargaining agreement.

Although Amazon employs unionized workers in Europe, the company has spent much of the post-pandemic period fighting organized labor in the United States. Amazon is currently facing litigation over alleged hardline tactics in disputes involving union efforts in Bessemer, Alabama, and Staten Island.

In April, the National Labor Relations Board directed Amazon to negotiate with the Teamsters in Staten Island. Amazon has responded with lawsuits challenging the NLRB’s legitimacy.

“Amazon will say or do whatever it takes to deny workers stronger rights and wages and abdicate its responsibilities for its own employees,” the Teamsters said in a statement.

The potential impact of the Delivery Protection Act is also a major concern for the 40 independent companies that employ New York City’s 5,000 Amazon delivery workers.

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“Look at what happened in Quebec,” said Kris Basmagy, the owner of DashWave Delivery, which manages Amazon deliveries on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “There was pressure on Amazon’s model, and it pulled out.”

Basmagy, who employs 150 delivery workers, said Amazon could relocate its New York operations to “warehouses being built along the New Jersey Turnpike,” leaving the city’s facilities behind.

Amazon remains embroiled in litigation in Quebec and denies that its warehouse closures were connected to organizing efforts by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, or CSN. The union filed a complaint with Quebec’s labor tribunal. Even if the tribunal finds that Amazon broke labor laws, the company would face no more than a fine and possible consumer backlash, according to CBC News.

A class action lawsuit filed by an Amazon Prime customer in Quebec in February 2025 claims that the warehouse closures slowed Amazon’s delivery times beyond the one- and two-day guarantee for Prime service — with some deliveries instead taking as long as four to six days.

In May, a Quebec court ruled that the case can proceed. Still, plaintiffs who are seeking refunds admit the disruption only lasted about two months, according to the complaint. Amazon says service hasn’t suffered since a large Canadian logistics company, IntelCom, took over its Quebec deliveries.

“Then they got their act together and stopped the delays,” said Saro Turner, a partner in the law firm Slater Vecchio, which filed the suit.

In New York, Amazon maintains that delivery times and prices for customers would increase if it closed its warehouses. New York is “fundamentally different” from Quebec, where Amazon operated “far fewer sites,” according to Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly.

The company bankrolled a study by AKFR showing that the Delivery Protection Act would cost New Yorkers an extra $664 extra a year — or about $5.20 per package. That figure covers deliveries made by other companies, including FedEx and Doordash.

“New York City is one of the largest and most complex delivery regions in the country,” Kelly said in a statement. “It’s best served by a network of local small businesses deeply embedded in their communities and leveraging our operations infrastructure.”

Amazon deliveries in New York would slow permanently if it closed its last-mile facilities in the city, according to a source with knowledge of Amazon’s operations. Same-day deliveries and those that occur within hours of placing an order would take the biggest hit. The number of items that fall under the Prime promise would also shrink, this source said.

“There are a lot of same-day and same-morning deliveries in the city” that could arrive the next day, the source said.

Amazon’s last-mile facilities in Brooklyn and Queens include one in Red Hook at 270 Richards St. and another in Maspeth at 55-15 Grand Ave. Last-mile warehouses in Manhattan include an 87,000-square-foot facility at 706 11th Ave., according to a report on safety issues from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine.

“Amazon wouldn’t blink about shutting down the 15 facilities in New York City if it felt that the legislation was a threat to its business model,” said Brittain Ladd, a logistics and retail consultant and former Amazon executive. “This is about a model that could be copied in other cities.”

The delivery companies say they are the collateral damage in this struggle.

“There is a laser focus on punishing Amazon no matter what the repercussions might be, what it does to us as business owners, fathers and husbands,” Basmagy said. “It’s as if we no longer exist.”

WGA Transit, which has actively recruited formerly incarcerated and homeless workers to deliver Amazon packages in Harlem, will be forced out of business if the Delivery Protection Act is enacted in its current form, owner Joe Artus told The Post.

“I have a 21-month-old daughter,” Artus told The Post. “If this thing passes, there is no way for my company to exist or to keep my 189 employees.”