On Wednesday’s CNN This Morning, Audie Cornish took up the reason for Zohran Mamdani’s newest socialist stunt: his plan to pressure Amazon to transform its supply drivers from impartial contractors into full-blown staff.
“This financial system is quick being constructed on gig staff’ backs,” Cornish declared, channeling her interior Bernie Sanders. These poor gig staff, toiling away for the millionaires and billionaires! Certainly they lengthy to be employed as common staff with fastened schedules and all the thrill of punching a clock.
Besides . . . most of them don’t!
Based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Contingent Work Complement, 80.3% of impartial contractors most popular their present association over conventional W-2 employment. Solely 8.3% mentioned they’d relatively be common staff. The BLS conclusion [emphasis added]:
“As in prior surveys, impartial contractors overwhelmingly most popular their work association.”
And simply in case anybody was making ready to dismiss the research as a Trump-ordered present to the billionaire class, the information got here from 2023 and was launched in 2024 — throughout the Biden administration.
CNN’s phase by no means talked about any of this. As an alternative, it rolled Mamdani marketing campaign video accusing Amazon of utilizing subcontractors to “protect them from duty,” adopted by supportive TikTok voices. Though the Supply Safety Act technically covers different last-mile operators, Mamdani has made Amazon the star of the present. Nothing says “preventing the oligarchy” fairly like concentrating on the corporate related to Jeff Bezos.
Cornish did float one sensible concern: What if Amazon merely packs up and strikes its operations throughout the river to New Jersey? A panelist waved it away, confidently declaring, “I don’t assume anybody goes to be mad at him for taking up this battle.”
Really, many individuals will likely be. Gig staff who like the flexibleness to set their very own hours or maintain different jobs would lose the association they selected. New York prospects would seemingly see greater costs and slower deliveries. And people idling-emissions fines Cornish tut-tutted about? Reclassifying the drivers as Amazon staff doesn’t magically cease vans from idling in Manhattan site visitors.
The phase handled pressured worker standing as pure advantage and employee desire as irrelevant. The outcome was a tidy morality play: Mamdani the champion of the oppressed, Amazon the villain, and the precise views of the overwhelming majority of gig staff left on the cutting-room flooring.
You would possibly say that Mamdani is callously staging his stunt . . . on the backs of gig staff!
The transcript is beneath:
CNN This Morning
8/26/26
6:11 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: Subsequent: Zohran Mamdani, taking up Amazon. The New York Metropolis mayor is pushing the Supply Safety Act.
So, this can be a proposal that will pressure Amazon to instantly rent hundreds of subcontracted supply drivers.
Mamdani’s workplace posted this video two weeks in the past.
MAMDANI VIDEO: The employees’ routes and hours are set by Amazon. So why is not Amazon accountable for these vans? As a result of Amazon and different companies have constructed an enormous community of subcontractors that protect them from duty.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI: For this reason I am proud to help the Supply Safety Act.
As a result of if Amazon is delivering your packages, they need to comply with the identical guidelines of each different supply man.
CORNISH: Oof, Group Chat is again.
I want to speak about this, as a result of this financial system is quick being constructed on gig staff’ backs. Which implies they are not official staff, which suggests the businesses getting sure advantages from that.
However in New York, Amazon, there’s quite a bit right here I believe that is powerful to tackle.
TAMARA KEITH: Yeah, effectively, folks simply driving up in their very own automobiles and dropping packages.
CORNISH: I’ve seen that. Somebody pulls up and I am like, “Wait a second, it is not an official van, like, what are we doing?” And it is some individual simply, yeah —
KEITH: — simply attempting to get by.
CORNISH: Can I simply throw this out right here? They’ve collected 9 million in fines for idling violations, which, that is the place I am gonna get my, my city, wrinkled nostril on. It is annoying! Not simply in New York however all over the place: automobiles simply idling as they’re making their [inaudible.] It is not like a UPS or one thing like this.
And this is what persons are saying on TikTok. I wanna play this for you, ‘trigger these are the people who find themselves each utilizing the product and, on this case, being the deliverers.
TIKTOK VOICE 1: So what they’ve carried out, is that they’ve created these LLCs, these small supply firms, proper? That mainly they subcontract their deliveries to. These different entities have their very own insurance coverage and so they’re additionally not below the umbrella of Amazon.
TIKTOK VOICE 2: When you’re an worker, now you gotta pay them advantages, now they get sick time, now they get break day. However now, should you subcontract them [other voice] like Uber, appropriate, now should you subcontract them out, they get a 1099. Now they do not have the protections.
ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT: I believe that is extra about Zohran preventing for working class, guaranteeing they’ve fundamental advantages, healthcare, and be capable of get pleasure from an honest high quality life.
I additionally assume —
CORNISH: But when they relocate out of town, proper? If Amazon says, ” what? Then we do not wanna deal and we go away,” does that damage the identical folks he is attempting to help?
SEAWRIGHT: May very well be, however I additionally assume there is a larger political narrative right here. He prides himself on his facet of the motion, prides himself on taking up the millionaire-billionaire class. And take into consideration who owns Amazon, and take into consideration the broader battle and dialogue we’re having with sure wings inside our occasion, and I believe it feeds into that.
So I believe there are various issues at play, however on the finish of the day, I do not assume anybody goes to be mad at him for taking up this battle.
