Front Burner - The former worker who pushed for an Amazon union, and won

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Last week, a group of current and former Amazon workers in New York’s Staten Island accomplished what some of the biggest unions in the United States could not: they organized Amazon’s first successful union vote in the country. The battle isn’t over yet: in a statement, Amazon said it is weighing whether to file objections. But today, we speak to Chris Smalls, interim president of the newly-formed Amazon Labor Union, about how he sparked a movement that succeeded where others have failed — and where that movement is headed next.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Jamie Poisson. The champagne was popping on Friday. Workers from Amazon's warehouse in Staten Island, New York had just won their union

drive. And in the middle of the party was the guy who got it all started, Chris Smalls. We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space because when he was up there, we were signing people up. Yeah, we were signing people up. It's been a long road for Smalls,

who spent the last two years fighting to form a union after getting fired after protesting the company's approach to COVID. Back then, he was still one of 1.3 million workers, adding to the revenues of one of the world's richest companies. When you're criticized, first look in a mirror and decide,

are your critics right? If they're right, change. Don't resist. No. But not in this case. For years, Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, have successfully fought off some of America's biggest labor unions. We don't believe that we need a union to be an intermediary between us and our employees. Until now. Chris Smalls is my guest today, and he's joining me to talk about this momentous victory and to discuss why he and his team succeeded where others have failed. Hey, Chris, thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for having me.

It's such a pleasure. So this was a really big deal on Friday. And I just wonder if we could start, if you could just tell me what the last few days have been like for you and everyone else on the organizing team. Oh, wow. It's been a whirlwind of events. Definitely, we're being swamped by workers reaching out from all over the country, all over the world. So we're just trying to figure out how we're going to balance everything out because we still got a second election to win in about two and a half weeks. So we're walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the second election. Can you just tell me briefly about what that is? Yeah. So we have our second location, LDJ5, which we filed for back in December as well, which is right across the street from JFK. So this facility is a sortation, a little bit smaller. It's about 1,600 workers in that bargaining unit. And we're hoping that they'll be the first sortation center that is unionized in America. And they'll be our second building that we have within the month frame. So it's a very exciting time. And you mentioned JFK, that's your first building. Correct. Yeah. I want to talk to you about how you got to this point. Because I know that you were working as a supervisor at that first building, JFK 8, the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island. And you started protesting the company over its

COVID-19 policies. But I know you worked for Amazon for years at multiple warehouses. Even before the pandemic, what were you seeing that made you think, hey, there's a problem with how this company is run? Oh, wow. Well, I started back in 2015, you know, with the company and got promoted up, as you mentioned, to a supervisor role. But, you know, before COVID hit, I definitely had my woes with the company. There was a lot of systemic issues when it comes to promotions. You know, I myself wasn't given the same opportunity as my white counterparts. I applied to be a manager 50 times and was only interviewed twice. Most of the management in the building is white. And I didn't see the same equal employment opportunities for the black and brown employees. Amazon data shows that 26 percent of its employees

are black. It sounds good, but most of those employees are part of the company's warehouse workforce. Critics say Amazon's highest paid employees are white and male. That was my main concern and main issues with the company is it's a lot of favoritism. And, you know, workers got good workers. I've seen workers get cut, you know, come and go every single day, high turnover, high injury rate. So all of these things really played a toll on me when it came to the pandemic. It made it easier for me to take a stance. Our listeners might have heard about this protest that you organized in March 2020 against what you called unsafe COVID practices. Workers and delivery drivers at the Staten Island facility will walk off the job today. They say they won't go back to work until the building is cleaned and sanitized.

This was, made big headlines at the time. I remember Amazon then actually ended up firing you for what they said was your violation of COVID-19 safety rules. We talked to Amazon today. They refused to speak on the record. They did provide us with a statement. They claim that they did not fire Mr. Smalls because he organized a rockout, whether he was fired because he violated, they say, a medical quarantine and came on site yesterday. I should point out that the New York Attorney General called for your firing to be investigated by the National Labor Relations Board and called it disgraceful. But how did that firing catalyze you into action?

Well, yeah, I didn't want to just be another statistic that was just fired and then forgotten about. I had nothing else to do. You know, the world was on lockdown. forgotten about. I had nothing else to do. You know, the world was on lockdown. Everything was under a microscope as far as, you know, the social injustice in this country Bezos' homes across the country. Tell me about that. What did you do? Well, I traveled the country with my team and comrades and workers of Amazon. And we traveled to his, you know,

million-dollar penthouses and mansions. We started in New York at his now $96 million penthouse. And then we went to D.C. to his $23 or $26 million mansion. We went out west to his Beverly Hills, $165 million mansion. Then we went to Seattle. So we tried to bring our grievances to his doorstep, letting him know that the pandemic is still alive. And we were neglected. We dropped the ball and we deserve better protections that were deemed essential workers. I know that another

person who is portrayed as having a real integral role in this is your friend Derek Palmer. Hearing that Chris got fired just for doing the right thing, for standing up for all of us. So I had a tough decision to make. And at the know, 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 JFK. And I wonder if you could tell me a bit about him. Yeah, sure. You know, Derek Palmer, me and him go back to when I was employed. I was his direct supervisor, you know, along with a few others that are still organizing with us. Derek was definitely one of my best employees. I relied on him to help me take my workload off as a supervisor. He was a leader inside the building. He's a six-year Amazon vet. And definitely, he's the vice president of the Amazon Labor Union for that reason,

because he's already a strong leader himself. A lot of workers were talking about Chris being scared about the coronavirus and then ultimately speaking up about the coronavirus because of what happened to Chris and other organizers that were terminated. So I made it my business to talk you know, to talk to them, to ease that tension. I'm going to talk a little bit now and get into the details of how you guys actually pulled this off. So because this is such a David and Goliath situation, hey, you're independent, you had a budget of I believe 120,000. By comparison,

Amazon spent 4.3 million on anti-union consultants in 2021 alone. So I just I want to break down why you succeeded when others have failed because this wasn't the first attempt to organize a U.S. Amazon warehouse. Maybe we can start by talking about what really worked for you guys. I know you were at this bus stop really close to the warehouse every day talking to commuters, to workers as they came in. And how did that location really help you connect with workers? Oh, it was it definitely was vital to be in front of the building, having my presence on the ground, talking to workers every single day, connecting, building our relationships up, earning their trust. That was so important to this campaign.

We didn't know what we were doing at first, course you know we we were figuring out things as it went along but we knew whatever we were going to do we're going to go with what's working for us and um that was working for us at the time you know me being on the outside at the bus stop you know being the intern and being the interim president you know uh as a lead organizer if there's some some questions that can't be answered you know it's it's great to say well the president's outside at the bus stop you can go have a conversation with them and um that's exactly help you know the organizers on the inside um and me on the outside it was like an inside outside game and um it definitely uh you know got us to the point where we were able to not just sign up over 4,000 workers, but ultimately win the election.

Can you tell me a little bit about the inside game? So I think your friend Derek and then other workers you mentioned, what were they doing inside the warehouse? Yeah, they were occupying the break room, definitely taking over their department, you know, talking to different workers every single day. You know, just organizing within, you know, building relationships with other workers, making them comfortable, and, you know, just playing that role, you know,

until we were ready to unionize, I think. But occupying the break room was key. You know, every day they would go set up tables and we'll have luncheons and we'll bring different type of cultural food, West Indians to African rice, to, you know, empanadas, you know, trying to reach different demographics,

bringing different type of food every day. You know, just once again, earning the trust of the workers. That was definitely vital to making that connection food um every day you know just once again earning the trust of the workers that was a definitely vital to um making that connection because amazon tried to um spin it as if we're some third party but when workers are like how are they third party and when we're in the building they realize that the alu is is the actual work workers of the building you know the entry level workers the hourly associates.

We're all the Amazon Labor Union. There's no separation. There's no third party. Yes, there's core members that organize, but we're organizing on behalf of everybody. You mentioned the ALU. I just said that's the Amazon Labor Union. That's the union that you and your colleagues created.

Tell me more about how Amazon responded to this organizing, because I understand they responded quite severely. They put these workers into captive audiences. So imagine walking into the building and, you know, you're getting put into a classroom and being spilled or drilled anti-union propaganda for a whole hour. It is critical that we recognize the early warning signs of potential organizing and escalate concerns promptly.

The most obvious signs would include use of words associated with unions or union-led movements like living wage or steward. So, you know, they had an upper hand. You know, we had a disadvantage. We only had, you know, minutes of a day to talk to a worker because they had to go to work or they had to get to their station on time. So we had to utilize the short time frames that we had and make sure that we're, you know, making that connection within that timeframe. But Amazon, once again, they had 24 seven and they had millions of dollars to, at their expense to really bust this union up, but, you know, they were unsuccessful. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. How did the workers respond to Amazon's techniques here to attempt to stop the union from forming? Well, of course, you know, some workers obviously going to fall victim to the propaganda and the misinformation. But I believe that workers also saw it as a way of saying that this company is

a trillion dollar company that's spending all these resources and money into stopping this group of workers and their co-workers from forming this union so to themselves they asked the question of why are they doing this and it ultimately backfired you know on amazon because they were telling them to do your research do your research do your research know the facts um know what the alu unpack unpack the ALU. They made a website. So when they did all of this, it did draw workers to come ask questions. And that's exactly what we wanted them to do. We wanted them to ask the questions

so that we can answer them and give them the real information about what unions provide. And I just think that once we did that and we were able to educate the workers, it played in our favor. And all of the classes, all of the propaganda, the using of the police, the NYPD arrested us, all of that played a factor into making workers vote our way and our favor. Talk to me about the NYPD arresting you.

What happened? Yeah, just like any other day, I was out there delivering food in the visitor's parking lot, something we do every single day. Every time we have these luncheons, which is several times a week, I dropped off some catered food. I was waiting until lunch was over. Lunch is usually about an hour. You went inbound and outbound. One of the higher-ups came. He came out, and he threatened me with the police. Next thing I know, I'm surrounded by police. A couple of organizers came to my aid, and they arrested not just me,

but two other of the workers who actually work for Amazon. Jason is a worker! Jason is allowed to be here! Which I found was definitely, you know, disgusting. And that also, you know, once again, for the undecided people that didn't, that wasn't on board prior, they definitely helped us out by arresting us. And, you know, those people were upset and they signed up with the union the next day. You know, going up against Amazon, it strikes me that like your messaging was maybe way more hopeful and fun, right? Like you guys were friends. You were bringing all of this cool, delicious food. Like, it just seems like you had great vibes. And do you think that had something to do with your success here? Of course, you have to be a people's person. You have to be outspoken.

You have to be strong. You can't be secretive. You can't be behind the scenes when you're going up against Amazon. You got to be outspoken. You got to be willing to take a risk. And I think every one of my organizers are willing to do so. You know, we shut down captive audiences. We filed over 40 ULPs. You know, we are, you know, people like us. They love seeing us in person. I'm a real good people's person, obviously. You know, people love talking to me.

And I love having conversations. I even consider it being a therapist sometimes. You know, people tell us their life stories. And I think all of that matters. You know, adding a human aspect to our campaign is something that Amazon doesn't have. They have a system. They have a computer. They have an app.

They have metrics. They have numbers. But we have actual feelings and we care about one another. And we built this union off of sort of like a family orientated vibe. And I think that resonated with the workers more. You mentioned you filed ULPs. I don't know what those are. I'm sorry.

Unfair labor practices. I got to use lame. No, no, no. That's good. That's good. Cool. Cool. You mentioned before Bessemer, Alabama, A big union drive happened there as well.

But it was driven by a big union, the RWDSU. They tried two times to organize workers there and they failed. They lost the vote. Early results have Amazon workers rejecting a union bid for the second time here in Alabama. Yeah, it's a blow to labor organizers. More than 2,300 of the 6,100 eligible employees cast a ballot at the facility in Bessemer. And the National Labor Relations Board says they challenged votes. Those challenged votes could still change the outcome. I know you went to Bessemer during the union drive. And I just wonder from your perspective, what did you see?

Why do you think they couldn't make it happen, but you could? Well, the first time I went down there, I definitely saw some missed opportunities. And I just felt like they didn't have enough workers on the inside. You know, it's important that when you're campaigning against Amazon that you're building your workers committee up. I didn't see that in the first campaign. I saw them politicizing it too much, bringing politicians.

These politicians don't even live in their community. How do they relate to these workers? I think it was just too much of a disconnect. Once you have a disconnect from your campaign as far as the workers, you don't have a chance. And that's what I saw last year. But I think they did a better job this time around.

I'm not too sure what's going to happen with their second election. Right now, they're still being challenged with the ballots. But I can tell you with our ballots, but, um, I can tell you what our campaign, we made sure that it was workers led, uh, through and through putting the workers in a driver's seat. Um, you know, once again, all of our organizers are veterans of Amazon, you know, besides Derek, uh, there's others that been around with Amazon three, four years plus. And I think every last one of us have some type

of, we just have bigger influence on our coworkers than any established union could ever have. On that note, I wonder if we could talk about the ALU's future because your new union has just won, obviously. And we've talked about some of the drawbacks of big unions just now, but they also do have a lot of resources, hey, and teams of lawyers and research experts on staff that a little union, especially a new one, may not. And how are you planning to deal with that? Well, we got here without it. So I think we're going to continue to stay our course. And I know our Calvary is coming. We got some more resources that in the last several days, obviously, because we won, you know, better late than never. And, you know, I definitely need some more. So I'm going to be meeting with a lot of different unions now as the current interim president. You know, that's my job to try to get us the resources that we need to be successful. So that's what I'm doing. You know, I'm going to be meeting up with several

big unions in the next several days. I'm going to be bringing in more legal representation. I'm going to be bringing in more staff to help us. I'm going to be getting us an office space to work out of. And I'm going to make sure that I continue to lead us in the way that this worker-led union want to go. you know, whatever way the workers decide, that's the way I'm going to go in. And hopefully, we'll continue to be successful and grow. Chris, thank you so much for for making the time to come on to the podcast. I know you're super busy, but this was really interesting. And it's such a pleasure to have you. Absolutely. Anytime. Thank you for having me.

After the Staten Island vote, Amazon released a statement. The company said they're weighing whether to file objections to the union that would try to prevent it going forward. And they accused the National Labor Relations Board of undue influence during the campaign. At a trade union conference yesterday, President Joe Biden had a statement of his own. That's what unions are about, in my view, about providing dignity and respect for people who bust their neck. Biden has voiced support for unions before, but this was his most explicit endorsement yet of the attempts to organize at Amazon. By the way, Amazon, here we come. Watch.

That's all for today. Don't forget, if you like the podcast, you can leave us a review on your podcast app. It really, really helps other people find us. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.