AMAZON KILLERS
THE NEWS SAYS: Shame on these so-called progressives for rejecting 25,000 high-paying jobs & billions in taxes tech biz would’ve brought to city
Following months of community and political opposition, Amazon on Thursday announced it was canceling a $3 billion plan to open a headquarters in New York City — a massive blow to Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo, who rolled out the red carpet for the company just months ago.
Amazon pulled out of the project even as it was making progress in talks with major opponents.
Leaders of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Teamsters and AFL-CIO met with four top Amazon executives and Cuomo Wednesday, said RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum. The meeting was productive, Appelbaum said, and resulted in a framework for moving forward that did not require any unionization.
The project — which would have brought 25,000 jobs to a campus in Queens, state and city officials said — also had support from the Building and Construction Trades Council and SEIU Local 32BJ, whose members would have been involved in building and operating Amazon’s new facilities.
But the online company’s plans still faced fierce opposition from some elected officials, on whom Cuomo heaped blame Thursday.
“[A] small group of politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community — which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bring City ing Amazon to Long Island — the state’s economic future and the best interests of the people of this state. The New York State Senate has done tremendous damage. They should be held accountable for this lost economic opportunity,” Cuomo said.
While Cuomo blamed the Senate — which was set to appoint an Amazon opponent, Sen. Michael Gianaris, to a key state panel with sway over the project — de Blasio lashed out at the company for its lack of backbone and petulance.
“So what I don’t get is: We made an agreement with them. They chose New York City. We were keeping the agreement. Guess what: Some community activists wanted to see something else, they wanted changes or they had differences. That’s part of life. And instead of an actual dialogue to try and resolve those issues, we get a call this morning saying we’re taking our ball and we’re going home. I’ve never seen anything like it. So we are putting them in our past and we are moving forward.” the mayor said.
In a statement, the online retail giant blamed the Valentine’s Day breakup on the frosty reception it had received from local pols.
“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” the statement said. “While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our pres-
ence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”
Amazon launched the public search in 2017 for a location for its second headquarters, and in November, the company announced it would split the headquarters, dubbed HQ2, between two locations: New York City and Arlington, Va.
But while Virginia was welcoming, some New York activists and pols offered harsh opposition — citing concerns about gentrification, rising housing costs, the company’s hostility to unions and $3 billion in tax subsidies going to a company helmed by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos.
The deal was kept secret, announced only after it was completed — without the buy-in of local pols like Gianaris and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer — and was structured to avoid the approval process of the City Council, which held several scathing hearings on the deal.
“This is a company that has concentrated so much power that they think they can dictate to states and cities what they’re allowed to tell their people, how much money of theirs they want to take to grace us with their presence and without any consideration of the communities that their presence would affect,” Gianaris said at a press conference Thursday.
Amazon’s anti-union stance did not help its case with critics. While it had committed to using union labor to build its offices and for building services — earning the support of the Building and Construction Trades Council and SEIU Local 32BJ — a top Amazon executive testified before the City Council that it would fight any union bids by New York staff.
“They buckled because we held firm on the values of New Yorkers — we told them that you cannot come to New York City and declare that you will crush the rights of workers to organize,” said Van Bramer, who represents the area where the headquarters would have been built.
But union officials said they’d made progress in the 24 hours before the deal imploded. Union leaders’ meeting with Amazon executives Wednesday was producresulted tive, Appelbaum said, and in a framework for moving forward — that did not require any unionization.
“We were talking about fairness and how you deal with issues and make sure that there was no retaliation against the workers that supported unionization, and that there’d be no hostility on any campaign on either side,” Appelbaum said.
But about 24 hours later, the deal was dead.
“I think the richest man on Earth feels that nobody is supposed to tell him anything,” Appelbaum said. “I think that on Valentine’s Day, Jeff Bezos showed his contempt for New Yorkers. He says, ‘I’m going to tell you what it’s going to be, you either accept it or I leave.’
“We were in negotiations — he doesn’t feel he has to negotiate with anyone,” said Appelbaum. “It’s a shameful performance by the richest man in the world. It’s a worse scandal than the National Enquirer.”
While Amazon does not have a single unionized worker, Gary LaBarbera, president of the building trades union that has supported the bid, said he believed the union issue was a gap that could have been bridged. He blamed opposition from elected officials for the collapse of the deal, which he said would have meant 5,000 union construction jobs — of them, 1,000 for local people who would have entered the union through an apprenticeship.
“I believe that again, selfinterest in the political world here is very disappointing to me,” he said.