Midnight City & socialism

Amazon pulls out of Queens

In reality it looked like Queens was going to renege on the original deal and Amazon decided it was all or nothing.

NYTimes reported on Feb. 5:

Mr. Gianaris has consistently rejected that characterization, adding that the letter said nothing about state subsidies. But he also said on Tuesday that, given Amazon officials’ recent comments that they would oppose unionization, he would not sign that letter again today. 

In response to arguments that the subsidies would be more than made up by the jobs that Amazon would create, Mr. Gianaris said only that previous state economic development projects have been “littered with overpromising and underdelivering.”

And from Feb. 10 in Financial Times:

Soon it was revealed that Amazon was having second thoughts about Queens. Executives have been riled by the local hostility they have encountered, which they had not anticipated and is in sharp contrast to the loving embrace they have received in Virginia, the location they selected for another satellite headquarters. 

They are particularly concerned, according to a person briefed on Amazon’s deliberations, about demands to allow its New York workers to unionise — something the company has refused elsewhere. 

“Amazon is a non-union company and did not realise this would have to change in New York,” this person said.