How Two Best Friends Beat Amazon’s Union-Busting Campaign

AMY GOODMAN:This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

New Yorkers have the opportunity to vote for unionization at Amazon, a retail giant.

AMAZON WORKERS: [cheering]. Let’s go! Yeah! Let’s go, baby! ALU! ALU! ALU! ALU!

AMY GOODMAN: Workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island celebrating Friday after they overcame a multimillion-dollar union-busting campaign and voted decisively in favor of joining the newly formed Amazon Labor Union, the first Amazon union in U.S. history. More than 8,300 warehouse workers were eligible for the vote. Christian Smalls, now interim president at the Amazon Labor Union, led this effort.

CHRISTIAN SMALLS:We want Jeff Bezos to be thanked for going to space. Because when he was up there we were signing people up.

UNIDENTIFIED:Yes, we were there campaigning.

AMY GOODMAN:We will soon have small-sized employees joining us. Amazon responded to the union vote in a statement, saying, “We are disappointed with the outcome of the election in State Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees. We’re evaluating our options, including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB that we and others (including the National Retail Federation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) witnessed in this election,” Amazon wrote.

State Island’s victory comes after a redo by a union election in which Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer in Alabama won. It is still too close for us to call. The National Labor Relations Board has found that Amazon illegally interfered last year with the Bessemer elections by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. RWDSU tweeted after Friday’s vote in Staten Island, quote, “History was made today. Huge congrats! Solidarity with Amazon workers from Staten Island to Bessemer and beyond!” they said.

Well, for more, we’re joined by the two best friends who played the key role in this historic labor victory, after Amazon cracked down on their grassroots organizing for better working conditions. Christian Smalls, interim president and chief organizer of the Amazon Labor Union representing JFK8 Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island (New York), is Christian Smalls. He claims that he organized a walkout and was wrongfully fired from his job in 2012, after he said he had organized a walkout. COVIDSafety conditions at peak pandemic. Joining other workers, he wore a mask and carried a sign that read, “Our health is just as essential.” At a victory party for the union Sunday, Christian Smalls was presented by his younger brother with a framed version of the sign. He’s joining us now from Staten Island. Derrick Palmer, vice-president of organizing for Amazon Labor Union, is also joining us in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He’s still an employee at Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. And in Brooklyn, we’re joined by Josefa Velásquez, senior reporter for The City, an online news website that is not for profit and is based in New York City. Her latest piece is headlined “A Cinderella Story: How Staten Island Amazon Workers Won Against the Multi-Billion-Dollar Company.”

All of you are welcome to Democracy Now! Well, Christian Smalls, why don’t we begin with you? Can you tell us about this victory, and how it was achieved, and specifically how you organized your own union, The Amazon Labor Union?

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yes. Good morning. Thank you for having us. Wow! Every time I hear or see those videos, it still takes a lot out of me, because it’s unbelievable, what we accomplished. We started 11 months ago, a grassroots, worker-led movement, just Amazon workers, former, current, like myself, just trying to do the right thing — once again, no resources, no major backing, just a bunch of ordinary people just coming together from all over the country. We had many people flying in to help, including some of the comrades I traveled across the country advocating for us. And 11 months ago, we started something that we really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but we just knew that it was working for us. You know, we were consistently talking to our workers every single day — me, unfortunately, not being able to go inside the building. It was just me and Derrick playing the inside-outside games: Derrick at the bus stop connecting to workers, earning their trust, building relations; me at the building, Derrick actually in the building talking to workers every single day in his department, taking control of his old department. It was these things that helped us get to this point. And I’m just ecstatic and excited to be the interim president and lead us this victory. It’s wonderful to see, and I’m happy to just once again share this experience with the entire world.

AMY GOODMAN:Christian, can we go back to March 2020, when New York City was closed, and talk about the things you did? Talk about the first walkout and how it ended up that you were fired.

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Derrick. You know, Derrick was — at that time, I had no vehicle. Derrick and me live in the exact same neighborhood, in New Jersey. We were riding to work every morning, and I noticed that someone in my department was becoming dizzy, fatigued, or vomiting. They weren’t — something was wrong. It was a very unsettling situation in the building. We didn’t have any PPE. We didn’t have any cleaning supplies. We didn’t have any social distancing. Amazon wasn’t really enforcing any guidelines. Everything was just rumour.

We tried to get through the proper channels. And then, by the end of the week, after going into the general manager’s office every single day voicing our concerns, they only decided to quarantine just me and nobody else, not even Derrick, the person I ride to work with. At that moment I knew something was wrong. They were just using this quarantine, that nobody’s seen — this policy, nobody read or seen or even heard of — to silence me from organizing the workers. I decided to break the quarantine and hold the March 30th walkout. And two hours after that walkout, that’s when I was terminated over the phone.

AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear, they were quarantining you, but you hadn’t tested positive for COVID.

CHRISTIAN SMALLS:Absolutely not. Keep your fingers crossed. Not even ’til this day, I never tested positive.

AMY GOODMAN:Derrick Palmer, can we talk about what happened inside? You were co-workers. You went to work every day together. You’re best friends. Christian is now fired. Can you talk about why you decided to stay in?

DERRICK PALMER: Yeah. You know, at first, it was like — it was very discouraging, hearing that Chris got fired, just for doing the right thing, for standing up for all of us. It was a difficult decision. And at the time, there wasn’t a lot of jobs available. So I said, “You know what? I think I’m going to make it my business to organize from within at JFK8.” And I feel like that played a vital role. You know, many workers were talking to Chris, being afraid about the Coronavirus, then eventually speaking up about it because of what happened with Chris and other organizers who were terminated. So I made it my business to talk to them, to ease that tension, to still let them know that — you know, what I feel was illegal. You know, organizing within the building, building relationships, making them comfortable, and playing that role until they were ready to unionize. That was a key factor in our victory on April 1.

AMY GOODMAN:I wanted to listen to the audio recording that was leaked by The City newspaper from a meeting last Tuesday, when Amazon workers met with an Amazon workforce staffing manager named Eric and an employee relations manager, who presented slides on the, quote, “reality of dues and the subject of union life.” This is a short clip from the recording.

ERIC:Last week, we discussed dues. Remember that dues are paid by employees, and that’s the only source of income or funding toward the needs to pay salaries and expenses. These things may not be the most important thing in your life, but they can make a huge difference to unions. So, what will the ALUDo your priorities match yours Collective bargaining can choose any negotiation. Sometimes, you have to give up a lot to get something. And what’s important to you may not be important to someone else.

AMAZON WORKER: Oh my god, yo, I can’t…

ERIC:You could get the same benefits you have now from a union contract, including vacation time, paid parental and medical leave, wages, 401(k) for injury, and resources to live. It could offer you more or less than you currently have. Remember that negotiations are always a partnership. To give up something, you must first give it. And here’s why they matter. What is important to the ALUThey may not be as important to you. They will offer to trade your priorities in exchange for one of theirs.

AMAZON WORKER: That’s not true.

AMY GOODMAN: That was a worker saying, “That’s not true.” Derrick Palmer, you were in this meeting. It wasn’t so clear to hear, so if you could talk about the main points that management was presenting and what this was all about?

DERRICK PALMER: Yeah, I mean, these captive audience meetings, they’re pretty much designed to discourage workers from signing up for unions. So, you know, what I witnessed with multiple captive audience meetings is that the message that they’re trying to relay is that you can’t speak to your manager once you become — once a building becomes unionized; you can lose certain benefits from joining a union; the ALU is inexperienced — all different type of points that they try to convey to these workers, which ultimately scares them. So, having myself and other organizers on the inside pretty much counteracting all the messages that they’re trying to present to the workers, you know, played a vital role. So, they’ve had so many different other things that they were talking about, as well, saying that your personal time could be the same, you can lose pay, as well — so, a lot of threatening things that they were trying to do.

AMY GOODMAN:I wanted Josefa to this conversation. Josefa Velásquez is with The City. This audio was leaked. Could you please talk about the significance and impact of this victory?

JOSEFA VELÁSQUEZ: I mean, I don’t think we can really understand how big this is. These men, to their credit were a grassroots movement that took on Amazon, which was a huge company, as well as Jeff Bezos, who is the second richest person on Earth. They did it because of their connections with people at the facility. Chris and Derrick both have worked at several Amazon sites over the past few years and are familiar with the people they work with. They are familiar with the company. You know, a lot of times when you see anti-union, like, messaging, it’s always, you know, “These outsiders are coming in. They’re going to threaten the way that your work is done.” But these are two individuals and many other organizers who know the nitty-gritty and the details of how Amazon works. Sometimes they would explain things to us, and sometimes I would stare at them blankly because it was so complicated. They look like the people who work at Amazon, and they understand the company and the work behind it. Amazon thrives on high turnover among its employees so you will see many people who are young.

And it’s very sort of quintessential New York with some of these captive audience meetings. You know, we’ve heard leaked audio previously from some of these meetings down South, but in New York what you’re hearing is people pushing back. You know, New York is a union town, but these guys really didn’t have much institutional backing or support. This is the ultimate Cinderella story.

AMY GOODMAN:You spoke about Amazon being large. It’s the second-largest private employer in the country — right? — right behind Walmart, and, of course, Jeff Bezos, the second-wealthiest man on Earth. I wanted to go back in time to 2018, when Amazon was still around. CEO Jeff Bezos said Amazon believed its workers didn’t need a union.

JEFF BEZOS: Very good communications with our employees, so we don’t believe that we need a union to be an intermediary between us or our employees. But, of course, at the end of the day, it’s always the employees’ choice. And that’s how it should be. So, we’re — but, for sure, we would be very naive to believe that we’re not going to be criticized. I mean, that’s just part of the terrain. Accept that fact. One other thing I tell people is, if you’re going to be — if you’re going to do anything new or innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood.

AMY GOODMAN:That was 2018. “You have to be willing to be misunderstood.” I wanted to go back to Christian Smalls. There was an internal memo that was leaked, saying that you weren’t very smart, and so they would make you the face of the movement — a challenge you took up in a very big way, saying, “OK, if I’m the face, I’m the face.”

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. You know, when that memo came out, that obviously motivated me to continue advocating for workers’ rights across the nation. We traveled the country together, Derrick and me. We protested in front of Jeff Bezos’s mansions and penthouses that we can find on Google, from the East Coast to the West Coast. And we decided that we would return to Staten Island.

You may recall that we were again invested in this business. Derrick is still involved. He’s over six-year vet. You know, they don’t realize who we are to this company. Jeff Bezos doesn’t understand warehouses as well as we do. So it’s funny that he said, you know, “You’re going to be misunderstood,” because we were. You know what? We were underestimated. We were outnumbered. People didn’t believe in us. People thought that this wasn’t going to happen. They had never thought that — expected that we were going to be here. It’s not just Jeff Bezos and his general counsel that didn’t want us to get here. It’s a lot of other people, as well, that claimed to be on the same side, that didn’t believe that we would be here. So, for us to be here at this moment, you know, it’s, once again, surreal for us.

AMY GOODMAN:Now you went down to Bessemer. I still remember hearing you down there while we were doing a piece. That was the Bessemer union-organizing effort. RWDSU — right? — the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. And we’re still waiting to hear the results now —

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — on the second vote. The NLRB said that Amazon had to have a — allow for a second election because they had interfered with the first one. Why didn’t you go with, oh, RWDSUFor example, the Teamsters or Amazon workers in Staten Island? The Teamsters union praised the workers at Amazon in Staten Island for your victory and ongoing union efforts of Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, tweeting, “What these elections show is Amazon workers want a union. The workers in Bessemer and Staten Island don’t have to wait for the government or anyone else to tell them they have power. They’re taking a stand & Amazon can’t skirt the law indefinitely. The #Teamsters are excited to continue this fight against Amazon — on the shop floor, at the bargaining table, & on the streets.” But it is Amazon Labor Union that actually won this battle, and it’s the first against Amazon to win.

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Right, right. This is the second time that these unions have been established. With their resources and the money they have, the volunteers they have, you can tell that they had 28 year. Amazon has been around 28 years. You know, we’ve done something that was unprecedented, because when we went down to Bessemer, we saw some missed opportunities with the campaign the first time. We saw things that didn’t really fit what Amazon workers represent. And I felt that, you know, in order to take down the machine, it has to become — it has to come from within. It must be the workers organizing themselves. And that’s what we did with the ALU. We created something that was universally loved by the workers. We are the workers. We are the employees. We have lived the grievances. We can understand the concerns. We speak the language. We look just like Amazon employees, especially here at New York.

So, bringing an established union in would have taken so many hours away from actually campaigning for an electoral victory. Because we would now need to educate the union about Amazon and how to reach workers, it would take so much time. Amazon is using that against us, I believe. Even with the ALU, they claim that we’re a third party. If you listen to the captive audiences, they say “they” are going to make the decisions for you. They tried to separate us. But they couldn’t do that, because we say we are — we are all the union. All workers are the union. And together, we’re going to make these decisions. And that’s how we were able to be successful against Amazon.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Josefa Velásquez about what’s happening in Bessemer. You’ve got a very close vote. I think it’s 993 “no” votes, 875 “yes” votes, more than 400 contested ballots. According to the NLRBThe National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will hold a hearing within the next few weeks to decide if challenged ballots will open and be counted. Talk about the difference you see in strategizing between what happened in Staten Island and what’s happening in Bessemer right now.

JOSEFA VELÁSQUEZ: Right. I think, you know, it’s what Chris said, that these are Amazon workers who are unionizing and organizing within their ranks, as opposed to what’s happening down South, where you do have a major labor union that is helping organize. And the first time around with the vote in Bessemer, they got a lot of heat, because you’re bringing in celebrities, high-profile politicians. You know, that’s not the people who work at Amazon. Those are people who surely order stuff from Amazon, but that’s not the folks that are inside packing up orders, shipping them out, putting in 10- to 12-hour days. There was a disconnect. And they had a second chance at it, and it’s still really close.

And you can’t discount the fact that New York is typically pro-union and union-friendly. But at the same time, you know, to the ALU’s immense positioning, it’s organizing within the ranks and understanding how this company works and the intricacies of it. You know, for us at the user-facing platform, it’s three clicks, and you have your product. But for the workers themselves, it’s all of these different steps, all of this jargon. And you understand that, at least in New York, sometimes to get to the Amazon facility in the northwest corner of Staten Island, you have to take a bus, you have to take a train, and then another bus, and it’s a two-hour commute each way. They know who the workers are behind this company. And it’s really, I think — you know, a lot of the times you get the word “grassroots” thrown around, but this is a case where it’s truly grassroots, where you have people who understand how Amazon works. Derrick still works at the facility and witnessed the union busting in action firsthand. Chris has previously worked as a supervisor at Amazon. He’s trained people. They know who the workers are, what their grievances are, and how the union can help.

AMY GOODMAN:So Derrick: What are your plans now? ALUThis huge victory was won by him. What are your demands for this victory?

DERRICK PALMER:It’s not about having better benefits or better pay. Those are the essential things. You also have job security. Amazon boasts a 150% turnover rate, as you know. JFK alone. People who commute from many boroughs should feel secure in their jobs. It shouldn’t take them three hours to get to work, and then, when they get there, they could possibly be fired. The chances of them being fired are high. This is why we need to make the change and also recruit more workers to join the union and become shop stewards. So we want to have shop stewards in different departments, so that we have workers representing other workers and that we can create an environment where our demands and the workers’ needs are appreciated. So, if you have these workers on the inside being more involved with the union, then now you create a powerful force that ultimately can’t really be stopped, and Amazon has to abide by these rules.

AMY GOODMAN:Chris, are you planning to organize additional warehouses? I mean, you actually have one — I mean, yours is what? Eighty-five thousand people. One is right across the street.

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah, absolutely. We have another election in a few weeks, which we are already preparing for. We’re right back out there. Yesterday, I was at the bus station. You know, we’re right back to the same thing we were doing. In the last 48-hours, we were contacted by thousands across the country. This is day one. ALU. Derrick and myself opened many buildings together. We would love to organize them. We’ve got people reaching out that, you know, watched and pay attention. And I’m ecstatic about what’s next. I know this is the catalyst for the revolution against Amazon, the same way it’s been happening with Starbucks. So, we’re going to have that same effect.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Josefa, if you can talk about the comparison of what’s happening with Amazon now and with Starbucks, what we’re seeing all over the country right now?

JOSEFA VELÁSQUEZ:You’re right. It all goes back to the early days of pandemic. Back then, everyone was praising the essential workers. All of these people had to endure the pandemic. The pandemic became a part of our daily lives, and we didn’t even notice it. This created a moment in which people were more conscious about the working class, those who bring us coffee and deliver our packages. And so I think it created this moment, really, in history where people started recognizing the working class more so than before, especially when it comes to like tech and big companies, where now you’re seeing Amazon and Starbucks having these major profit margins, while their workers are struggling to pay rent, to keep themselves fed, and are getting sick and dying from this virus.

So, it created this moment where everyone was looking around and saying, you know, “We have an immense amount of power, because people are no longer putting up with some of the working situations they have — they have other alternatives — and that at the end of the day, you know, dying over a Starbucks is not worth it, so let’s create something different. Let’s organize. You know, there’s power in numbers.”

And I think there’s two very clear things happening here, where it’s these worker-led movements and also a very big generational shift into the sort of feelings towards unions. Gen Z and millennials don’t have the same antipathy that perhaps, you know, Gen Xers and baby boomers have towards unions. Like, these are unicorn-like jobs, where if you’re able to grab a union job, great. These jobs are rare. So, you know, it’s this idea of organizing and this behind-the-scenes look through social media of, like, how my coffee gets made in the morning and all the steps behind it — and same thing with Amazon, it’s “How does my package actually get from point A to point B?” — that I think caused this moment of revelation for everyone that, you know, it’s not OK, how people are treated.

AMY GOODMAN:Chris Smalls, your last message to workers across the nation, as we end this conversation And what are the next steps for workers? ALUWhat do you do when it comes down to this warehouse? When can you start contract negotiations?

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Well, I’m going to answer the first one — excuse me — I’m going to answer the first one first. You know, we already started. We have already sent two letters directly to our general manager. Two days ago, I made a statement. And we’re already talking with lawyers. We’re going to be bringing in some more legal representation.

The message to workers across the country and worldwide is this: Do not quit your job; organize them. You know, that’s just a simple thing that you can do. You know, everybody say, “Quit your job if you don’t like it.” Well, you’re jumping from one fire into the next, and I think we need to stop doing that, because nothing gets changed. If you continue to do this, the system is still in place. And I think we proved that it’s possible, no matter what industry you work in, what corporation you work for. Amazon was just unionized. If we can do that, then you can unionize anywhere. You know, I’ve already seen emails coming in from — for example, I got some workers that reached out to me from Walmart. You know, whatever we can do, whatever advice we can lend, we’re absolutely here for you guys, very accessible. We are here to help you, so please reach out. If you’re in the New York area, volunteer, phone bank, donate. We are grassroots again. We’re ordinary people trying to do the right thing and protect one another. This is improving everybody’s quality of life, forming a union, so I encourage everybody to do the same thing. Follow us on social media @amazonlaborFollow us on Twitter @AmazonLaborUnionFacebook TikTok, Instagram, at AmazonLaborUnion.org; myself, @Shut_downAmazon

AMY GOODMAN:Christian Smalls, interim president and Derrick Palmer vice president of Amazon Labor Union, are my thanks for being here. They are besties, both aged 31. And, Josefa Velásquez, senior reporter for The City, we’ll link to your coverage, including your latest piece, “A Cinderella Story: How Staten Island Amazon Workers Won Against the Multi-Billion-Dollar Company.”

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