Why Do Amazon Workers In New York City Want To Unionize?
Amazon workers in Staten Island have gathered enough signatures to petition the NLRB to form a union at the E-commerce behemoth. We spoke to organizer Chris Smalls, a former Amazon supervisor and a co-founder of Amazon Labor Union.
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Errol Schweizer: Can you give us a quick summary about how you got started working at Amazon and what led to your dismissal?
Chris Smalls: I started working at Amazon back in 2015. I came in entry level, worked hard, got promoted up to a supervisor level. My first year, I opened up two more buildings after that first facility, one in Connecticut. And then my last facility was JFK Staten Island, currently where I'm at right now. So I was a supervisor for four and a half years. I oversaw the outbound operation. And last year when the virus hit, Amazon failed to protect us, provide PPE, provide any safety measures, guidelines. And as a supervisor, I felt it was my responsibility to protect my fellow co-workers who I spend 40 to 60 hours a week with, and I consider my extended family. And when I had a meeting with my higher ups, my bosses, they told me not to tell the employees that I'm overseeing that somebody tested positive. And that's when I took my stance against the company. I held the walkout on March 30, 2020. And two hours after that walkout I was terminated. And from that moment, I pretty much was catapulted into the media spotlight.
The week after I got terminated Jeff Bezos, along with the general counsel himself, signed off on a smear campaign, calling me not smart, not articulate, which ironically made me the face of the whole unionizing effort against Amazon. And fast forward to Alabama/Bessemer, what happened several months ago. That's exactly what we're trying to do. We're trying to pick up where they left off, and hopefully become successful in Staten Island. So we began the campaign about six months ago. And currently, that's where we’re at. We're in the middle of a heated campaign against Amazon as we speak. And I'm just trying to lead these workers into a victory.
Errol: Tell us a bit about how the RWDSU Bessemer campaign influenced this work.
Chris: Yeah, they definitely laid down the blueprint of how to get it done. I drove 16 hours down there with some of my colleagues who are actually current Amazon workers. And we spent some time on the ground. And we saw a lot of missed opportunities. And when we came back to Staten Island, we decided to say, no, we're going to wait for the results. After the results, then we're going to figure out how we're going to go. And that's exactly what we did. After the results came out, we knew that we wanted to strike while the iron was hot. And that's exactly what we're doing now. We didn't waste any time. We jumped right into our campaign. And we're organizing differently, organizing from within.
Errol: What is your critique of Amazon and how they treat employees?
Chris: Amazon treats workers like numbers. They run completely off of metrics. Everything is calculated from the moment you clock in and clock out. And that's what we try to express to the workers that we're trying to organize. You get a station number you're at 10, 11, 12 hours a day. You get a 30 minute lunch, which is obviously not enough time to walk across these massive buildings which are a million square feet and you're on your feet all day. Your body hurts, your body aches. You're doing repetitive work. So you're hurting the same limbs every day, straining the same limbs every day. You're bending, you're reaching, you're pulling, and these are real people that are being hurt and affected. That's what we try to explain and express to the public as well, they don't see behind the scenes, how their packages are being delivered.
Errol: What is the Amazon Labor Union? How did it come about? And what are the goals and vision of this new organization?
Chris: So, the Amazon Labor Union is a completely worker-led independent union, brand new from scratch, created by current Amazon workers. Here in Staten Island, we have four buildings. So this is going to be a very powerful union once we get established. These workers are resilient, they are brave, they're organizing themselves and the Amazon Labor Union can't be a better organization when it comes to organizing against Amazon, because they know the ins and outs of the company. The lead organizers here, including myself, we've been a part of Amazon for five plus years. Some of them worked for Amazon almost seven years or more. And so we're trying to hopefully spread like wildfire, once we're successful here.
Errol: So what are some of the tactics you're using for recruiting folks?
Chris: It's just the conversations, the face to face conversations. And as far as the workers that are organizing, these face to face interactions with their co-workers are the best way. We do use social media, obviously. But we do several things. We held 5 going on 6 barbecues, we had our press conferences, we invite musical guests, and we feed the workers daily and give out waters, donuts, coffee, you name it, we give it out every single day. Those types of connections really resonate with the workers. Amazon doesn't do any of these things, only as a reaction to what we're doing. They took away all their food vendors. So we've been giving out free food. They took away their hazard pay. They got workers that are living in shelters, some of them even homeless, and we're raising money for these workers. We're trying to amplify their stories. And we also obviously filed several lawsuits since we started. We have several unfair labor practice lawsuits pending right now with the NLRB. So we're just organizing differently with these tactics, and I think this is very effective going up against Amazon. Small victories matter. You have to earn the trust with the workers and you’ve got to put in the work on the ground.
Errol: How has Amazon reacted to your on the ground organizing efforts in Staten Island?
Chris: Oh, wow. They, well, they built this prison fence up to stop us from connecting with workers. They call the police on us, they call the fire department on us. They put the signs in the bathrooms, like they did in Bessemer. They send out text messages, they send out emails. They have the same union busting firm, walking around the building, spreading rhetoric, spreading lies, spreading doubt. We've seen it all. I mean, they didn't hesitate with us. They started probably the first or second week. They didn't wait six or seven months into our campaign, which tells us that we're a real threat.
Errol: So these are some of the same tactics they used in Bessemer. And does it worry you that those tactics were very effective in stopping the Bessemer campaign?
Chris: The way they were union busting in Alabama, with the intimidation factor, they had police at every single interest entrance of the facility. Every single day. They gave out what we call Amazon swag, like “vote no” pins and shirts, stickers, they gave out incentive money, they paid workers to quit before the vote, we're expecting the same thing. But here in New York is a different energy. New York is a union town already. A lot of these workers are related to union members, whether it's their parents or grandparents, they get off the bus, the MTA is unionized. Even the police department is unionized, the Fire Department is unionized. So everything that Amazon is trying to do with us it's not working, it's actually backfiring. Because they're going so hard with the union busting that workers are realizing is probably something that they need.
Errol: What are some of the positives that workers hope to have by being a member of a union?
Chris: Well, the number one thing is salary. A unionized worker makes roughly eleven to twelve thousand dollars more than non-unionized workers. Every unionized worker that I know, every unionized worker here in New York, they make very good money. They have a pension, they have job security. They have representation. They have Medicare, Medicaid, paid medical leave, you name it, the sky's the limit when you're in the Union. And when it comes to non-unionized workers, you know, companies can hire us and fire us at will. And that's what we tell workers that start here, that just got hired, this company can walk you out the next day for no reason. And that's what we have to stop. We have to break down that system and form something that's going to protect us.
Errol: How can folks support your work?
Chris: This is a very grassroots campaign. We have a GoFundMe up, on Twitter at Amazon labor union, or our website. Please donate to our GoFundMe. Every penny comes in and out right towards unionizing Amazon. So be a part of history.
We're in the very beginning stages of our fight. We need as much as support on the inside of the warehouses. We need that on the community level as well. So please support us in any aspect.
