AMAZON

Amazon workers on Staten Island made history as they voted to join an independent union.

By Annie McDonough

AMAZON WORKERS MADE history on Staten Island on April 1 as they voted to create the company’s first unionized warehouse after a series of failed organizing attempts at the behemoth employer’s facilities across the country.

According to the final tally announced by the National Labor Relations Board, workers at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island voted 2654 to 2131 in favor of joining the Amazon Labor Union – an upstart union led by Chris Smalls, who was fired from the facility during the COVID-19 pandemic after raising concerns about health and safety conditions, and Derrick Palmer, a current JFK8 employee. The NLRB said that the facility had roughly 8,000 eligible voters and counted over 4,700 ballots cast in the election – marking a relatively high turnout. Only 67 ballots were contested, far too few to compromise the union’s 523 vote lead. “We @amazonlabor has just (become) the first union for @amazon in The United States of America!” Palmer tweeted after the final tally was announced.

On the afternoon of March 31, when the union’s lead was still growing, Smalls told a reporter that he thought the Amazon lawyers watching the vote count were getting nervous. “I love watching them squirm. They’re drinking mad water,” he told Vice’s Lauren Kaori Gurley.

“We’re disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees,” Amazon said in a statement on April 1. “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.” It’s unclear exactly how Amazon is suggesting that the NLRB exerted undue influence, but the statement links to an article on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s website noting that the NLRB filed a court injunction to reinstate a fired union activist at the JFK8 warehouse.

New York lawmakers congratulated the union for its historic win. “Truly a David vs Goliath moment and I am so friggin proud of these guys! And to think it happened on Staten Island!” state Sen. Diane Savino wrote on Twitter.

“Felicidades to @amazonlabor for building real worker power & winning where it was supposed to be impossible. Welcome to our labor family!” State Sen. Jessica Ramos tweeted.

The organizing on Staten Island is led by an independent union, not an established

After the union vote, Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls, left, said: “We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space because while he was up there we were organizing a union.”

union like the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is leading a separate union election drive in Alabama. Palmer predicted last fall that the Amazon Labor Union’s independent organizing would work to their advantage. “Any other unionization effort at Amazon has been kind of a third party or already an established union. Them being on the outside makes a big difference,” Palmer told City & State in September. “I’m able to see exactly how Amazon is union busting, and I’m able to talk to workers that may feel discouraged and give them the facts so that they’re able to at least have a fair judgment on whether or not they want to join.”

By voting to join the Amazon Labor Union, the Staten Island workers claim a historic victory after a series of failed efforts across the country to organize the company’s workers – in large part thanks to Amazon’s well-funded resistance to any organizing. The online bookseller turned cloud computing giant made a billionaire out of founder Jeff Bezos and has staunchly opposed organizing efforts at its rapidly expanding warehouses. Throughout the organizing process, workers have reported being subjected to anti-union propaganda and captive audience meetings.

The Amazon Labor Union is asking for a $30 minimum wage – the company has long boasted about its $15 minimum wage for warehouse employees – more regular breaks and increased sick days, among other things. Employees have said that working at the warehouses can be grueling. “I (used to) tell every new hire, ‘If you have a gym membership, you might want to cancel it,’” Smalls told City & State last year. “You’re going to be on your feet for 10-hour days.” Smalls, a former assistant manager at the facility, was fired in late March 2020 after organizing a walkout over what he and others said were unsafe working conditions at the start of the pandemic and a lack of transparency about the spread of COVID-19. (Amazon representatives have denied both of these claims.) Amazon “@amazon said that it fired Smalls because he violated the wanted to company’s quaranmake me the face of tine policy – Smalls at the time had been told to stay home because the whole unionizing he came in close contact with someone who had tested positive for efforts against COVID-19. But Smalls them…. welp there you go!” maintained that he was fired in retaliation for his speaking up about working conditions at the warehouse. Smalls’ firing caught the atten– Amazon Labor Union organizer Chris Smalls, tion of state Attorney General Letitia via Twitter James, who opened

an investigation into the company’s labor practices in April 2020. In February 2021, James sued Amazon alleging that it failed to protect warehouse workers at its facilities in Queens and Staten Island during the pandemic and retaliated against employees who spoke up about working conditions. Amazon sued James just days before that in an attempt to preempt her from bringing those charges and argued that the claims she eventually made didn’t represent an accurate picture of the company’s pandemic response.

Despite not working at the facility for two years, Smalls founded the Amazon Labor Union and has worked with current and former employees to rally support among the thousands who shuffle in and out of JFK8 and the neighboring warehouses every day. At a company meeting attended by Bezos, an Amazon attorney insulted Smalls’ intelligence as he emerged as a leading critical voice, according to a leaked memo obtained by Vice in the spring of 2020. “He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers,” Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky wrote, according to notes from the meeting.

Smalls didn’t let that go unnoticed in declaring victory on Friday. “@amazon wanted to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts against them…. welp there you go!” Smalls tweeted.

While pro-union workers on Staten Island won their vote, workers voting in a separate union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, appear to have narrowly voted against joining RWDSU, but a final result in both elections may come down to challenged ballots. This is RWDSU’s second union vote at the Bessemer warehouse; the union lost by a wide margin in a 2021 vote but successfully argued to the National Labor Relations Board that Amazon improperly interfered in the vote and secured a second election.

The Staten Island warehouse workers’ victory could open the floodgates for more organizing at Amazon facilities across the country. Already, at a separate Amazon warehouse on Staten Island – known as LDJ5 – employees organizing with the Amazon Labor Union have secured an election and are set to start voting in late April. ■

City & State featured this photo of Smalls on our Oct. 11, 2021, cover. He was honored as one of the New York City 40 Under 40.

Chris talks Smalls organizing

The Amazon Labor Union founder is already working on unionizing his next Staten Island warehouse.

By Annie McDonough

IN THE WINTER of 2021, Chris Smalls took a trip down to Bessemer, Alabama, to lend his support to workers at an Amazon warehouse who were voting on whether or not to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Smalls had been fired as an employee at Amazon’s massive warehouse on Staten Island – known as JFK8 – a year prior, after protesting COVID-19 health precautions at the facility, and was emerging as a leading critic of the company’s warehouse conditions. At the time, Smalls said he hoped to take the organizing energy in Alabama with him. “That’s my plan, to bring it back up here to New York, and try to organize even my former facility,” Smalls told City & State that February.

But the RWDSU drive in Alabama failed in 2021, and a redo of the vote is still too close to call, with votes in favor of unionizing trailing votes against, and a large number of contested ballots still left to litigate. While RWDSU spent the past year securing a second election in Bessemer and organizing workers there, Smalls has been busy taking his own approach in New York.

In the past year, Smalls officially formed his own independent union – the Amazon Labor Union – successfully petitioned for a union election, and last week won that election, making JFK8 the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the country. Smalls may have picked up some lessons from his trip to Alabama in 2021, but his own effort was unique – not backed by an established union, but independently organized, funded by donations on GoFundMe and driven by current and former employees at the warehouse.

Smalls hasn’t had much time to catch his breath since the win. He’s been celebrating the ALU’s historic victory with his fellow organizers and the 2,654 JFK8 employees who voted to join the union last week. Much of his attention is now devoted to a union election at a second Staten Island Amazon warehouse – known as LDJ5 – happening later this month. And he’s aware that Amazon is likely to put up a fight as it reels from the result the company spent millions to prevent.

Smalls spoke with City & State about the next steps for the Amazon Labor Union and why grassroots organizing was key to their success. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s been a few days since your historic win. What has it been like for you?

Definitely a whirlwind. I’m just consistently doing a lot of interviews. I was able to sneak away to get back to the Amazon building a few times. I was able to go out and rejoice in celebration with the workers in front of the building. Right now, we’re gearing up for our second election, and I think we’re all excited to get back on the campaign trail.

What’s the vibe on the Staten Island campus – and what are current workers telling you about what it’s been like to return to work since the win?

My organizers are now being treated like little celebrities in the building. They walk in there, people are cheering, people are happy, people are crying, people are rejoicing. It’s beautiful, it’s a great feeling. I’ve still got organizers who haven’t been to work yet, so they’re eager, they’re ready to go back so they can see their co-workers who they helped sign up, because they all made history. I heard that when we won, in both buildings, workers inside were cheering and clapping. I still haven’t seen a lot of the people that I helped sign up, so I can’t wait to go back out there later today.

Are you expecting a similar result in the union election later this month at the LDJ5 facility? Are there any major differences between the two warehouses that change your approach to the organizing process?

There might be some dif-

ferences, for sure. We’re not going to get overly confident, we know that (Amazon is) still union busting every day. So we’re just staying grounded, and we’re going to continue to build this union. We are planning our blitz – what we like to call a blitz – within the last two weeks. I think my team is prepared and we’re ready, and we’re hoping that we’ll be successful again.

You did this as an independent union, and there were doubts expressed about whether you could do this independently, without the help of a major established union. But obviously you did what those major unions have failed to do before. To what extent was the independent aspect of your approach actually a strength?

It worked because we are the actual workers of the company, who know the ins and outs of the company. We live the reality of these grievances that people hear about in the media. We are the workers that come from the community that we had to help educate about unions. Hearing information about unions from a co-worker that’s been there – for example, some of my lead organizers that have been there, like Derrick Palmer, he’s a six-year vet – just sounds way more convincing than having an established

“My organizers are now being treated like little celebrities in the building. They walk in there, people are cheering, people are happy, people are crying, people are rejoicing.”

– Chris Smalls

Smalls and organizer Derrick Palmer credited their success with being a grassroots union.

union where they don’t know what Amazon is. They have to learn what Amazon is, how it operates, what’s the language, the culture. They have to learn so much to even step foot into the realm of trying to organize the co-worker. Compared to us, you know, we are the ones who invested our lives into this company for several years. So it’s just a different relationship that we have when it comes to organizing our co-workers. It just worked for us. The independent route, it has no history that Amazon can use against us – no reputation, no bad contracts, they can’t use anybody’s salary. They can’t use a lot of different propaganda that they would use on traditional unions against their own workforce.

You said on Twitter that you have heard from workers at 50 different Amazon buildings across the country about organizing since your win. Do you hope to expand ALU’s reach to other states, maybe help people set up their own local ALUs?

Yeah, absolutely, that’s the plan. We definitely heard from workers, and they’re saying directly that they want to unionize their building. They’re saying that we inspired them. I got emails saying that I lit a fuse under them, I lit a fire. Workers are paying attention now, which is beautiful. And we absolutely want to help them. As soon as we can finish up here in New York, especially with the second election, we’ll have a little bit more leeway to start to branch out. We’ve got people right here in the tri state – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – that want to start ALU chapters. So we absolutely are going to help people out as much as we can. We hope that this will be nationwide.

How are you feeling about the collective bargaining process that still lies ahead now that you’ve won the union vote for JFK8? Are you predicting a long and strenuous process of negotiating a contract based on what we’ve seen in Amazon’s resistance to this and other unions?

We don’t expect Amazon to sit down at the table, especially with somebody like me and the ALU. They’re not gonna want to negotiate with us right off the bat. We’re walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time. Of course, we’re working on our contract proposal right now, but we’re also still just focusing on the next two and a half weeks. We’ve got to win this second election, because we want to show workers that it wasn’t a fluke the first time around. We want to make sure that they understand that this union is powerful, and it’s going to continue to grow. Once this election is over, we’re going to jump right into forming our negotiating team and bringing in more legal representation. We’re in the process of interviewing different lawyers and different people who we want to make sure have the workers’ best interest. That’s what we’re doing right now in the short term, and then obviously, we’re gonna jump right into it.

vote – they have suggested that they could try to contest the outcome and companywide, they’re talking about banning words like “union” from an internal messaging app. What do you think about some of these responses?

This company is the ultimate anti-union machine. They’re going to spend millions of dollars no matter what. And that’s expected. So I just don’t get caught up in it. I know that we won undisputedly, I don’t know how they’re going to contest that. The challenge that they’re planning on presenting to the (National Labor Relations Board) doesn’t even make sense. They’re trying to say the board cheated in this election, it’s ridiculous. The election was run completely fairly. And of course, there are some things on our end that we can challenge as well, but we won, so there’s no need to. We’re just hoping that the board will make the right decision and dismiss it. But we know – and everybody watching it live knows – that we undisputedly beat Amazon by over 500 ballots.

You’ve had a lot of doubters throughout this process. Do you have any message to them about the win last week and what lies ahead?

My only message is they underestimated who we are and who I am as a person, what I was to this company. I invested almost five years of my life, I was a well-respected supervisor, I opened up three facilities. Sometimes you can’t just prejudge the situation. A lot of people counted us out, and we knew that. It’s unfortunate that people counted us out, but I’m just happy now that we’re able to prove a lot of people wrong. And prove that we can accomplish anything when we come together. ■

4 TIMES NEW YORK AND AMAZON HAVE RECENTLY CLASHED

NOW THAT THE Amazon Labor Union was victorious in its efforts to unionize Amazon’s JFK8 on Staten Island, it is setting its sights on another Staten Island warehouse, and union President Chris Smalls said he had been contacted by 50 other warehouses since their win.

The equally contentious history between the e-commerce giant and New York City and state extends further back than this unionization vote. Here are four times that Amazon and New York lawmakers and workers had public conflicts.

AMAZON FAILED TO GET A HEADQUARTERS IN QUEENS

In 2018, Amazon announced that HQ2, its second headquarters, was planned to be split between two locations: Arlington, Virginia, and Long Island City, Queens. Soon after the announcement from then-CEO Jeff Bezos, many New York politicians and unions opposed the deal because of poor working conditions at Amazon warehouses, the tax breaks offered and the threat of displacement. Between pressure from progressive lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, state Sen. Michael Gianaris and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, it was too much to overcome, and Amazon pulled their plans to build HQ2 at the Anable Basin site in favor of just developing in Virginia.

UNIONIZATION STARTED SOON AFTER JFK8 OPENED

JFK8, the warehouse on Staten Island, was already starting the process of forming

Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island a union prior to the announcement of HQ2 in Long Island City. In 2018, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union was in talks with some workers who were organizing at the facility. But with the massive amount of media attention that came with the HQ2 announcement, the union’s effort fizzled.

AG INVESTIGATED FIRING OF CHRIS SMALLS

Chris Smalls was fired in 2020 for protesting Amazon’s policies and working conditions at the outset of the pandemic. The company said he violated its COVID-19 policy. He said he was just one of many reports of employees facing retaliation from the company for protesting the company’s health policies. His firing sparked an investigation from state Attorney General Letitia James, who began interviewing workers at centers across the state to try and look into complaints of retaliation. James was interested in learning about the company’s allegedly relaxed social distancing policies that were endangering employees like Smalls while they worked in close proximity to one another in an enclosed warehouse.

JAMES’ INVESTIGATION LED TO LAWSUITS

New York state sued Amazon in February 2021 for allegedly providing substandard safety protections against the coronavirus and its spread in the company’s New York warehouses. But, before James filed the suit, Amazon preemptively filed its own, arguing that workplace safety and conditions were not a matter of state law but rather federal, attempting to render James’ forthcoming lawsuit moot. Amazon tried moving the case to a Brooklyn federal court, but a judge rejected that maneuver. James would be able to bring the case back to a New York state court. – Candace Pedraza