‘They thought we were a joke’: How one man took on a corporate giant
There are few things more simple than clicking ‘buy now’ to get that toy, book, product or gadget delivered to your doorstep in less than 24 hours – especially at this time of the year. But what is the human cost of that convenience?
Former Amazon picker, Chris Smalls, is all too familiar with the sacrifice.
When he worked at one of the USA’s 110 warehouses (or ‘fulfilment centres’), he travelled a sometimes six-hour round trip so that consumers never had to wait.
Chris, 36, would leave his home in New Jersey to get a bus, a train, a ferry and another bus to get to the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, where he would spend 10 to 12 hours in a huge, windowless warehouse, sorting through thousands of items for $12 an hour.
Pickers select and gather items ready for distribution; locating them, retrieving them, counting them out and checking them for damage or defects – which Chris was doing while working two jobs elsewhere to make ends meet.
‘It was a very physical job’, he tells Metro over Zoom. ‘You’re talking about a building that is the size of 14 football fields, a million square feet, and you’re on your feet all day. You have a 30-minute lunch break, and the rest of the day you’re standing up at a station.’ His ears would ring from the 24-hour din of the 16 miles of conveyor belt, but even if he could hear, there wasn’t time to chat to his co-workers.
‘It was like solitary confinement, because there were no windows and you can’t really talk or communicate with your neighbours because you’ll fall behind in productivity.’
According to one Amazon employee, during the summer people pass out from the heat, they stand to eat during their lunch break because the break rooms are too small and workers are treated like ‘robots or slaves’.
When Chris started the job, he was required to select 250 items to 300 items every hour ready for shipment, until the role was upgraded with the assistance of robots, when he had to pick between 350 and 400. He was good at it and within a few months was promoted to assistant manager, in charge of up to 100 other pickers.
But Chris became unhappy with Amazon – which employs 1.6 million people worldwide – when Covid hit. Before the first confirmed case in March 2020, Chris started to notice his pickers getting ill. He was worried about coworkers, who were sending out PPE to the rest of the world, but not having enough latex gloves, masks or sanitiser to keep themselves safe.
Chris explains: ‘New York City was the epicentre of the world. People were dying every 15 minutes. It was a very eerie time to be working there. On the news, and they’re telling us to social distance, but we’re not doing that in the building.’
With no union to defer to, Chris took it on himself to organise, listening to colleagues’ concerns and, after the first confirmed Covid case at work, asking that the warehouse be shut down and sanitised.
When the warehouse remained open, he arranged a walkout on March 30 and two hours later, Chris, who had been a model employee, received a phone call to tell him he was fired for violating the company imposed 14-day quarantine after he’d apparently been in contact with someone with Covid. He wrote an open letter to Jeff Bezos, explaining that he didn’t feel safe, and he was worried about his staff, workers with underlying health conditions who were risking their lives for an extra $2 overtime an hour. ‘I call this blood money’, he wrote.
Chris then learned that at an internal meeting of Amazon leadership company executives discussed a plan to smear Chris, calling him ‘not smart or articulate’ as part of a PR strategy to make him ‘the face of the entire union/organising movement.’
‘But that backfired on them, because it just motivated me to continue fighting and advocating,’ he says.
It was at that moment Chris, alongside friend Derrick Palmer, an Amazon assistant manager, decided to take the giant on, leading a grassroots campaign to establish Amazon’s first union; the Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
It was also at that moment that he made his last ever Amazon purchase – a megaphone – and travelled all over the States, protesting outside Bezos’ mansions in New York, Beverly Hills, Washington DC and Seattle.
A small team of them also campaigned outside the fulfilment centre, and as Chris and the group weren’t allowed on site, they set up a bus stop where workers arrived and left for their shifts, talking to them about working conditions, advocating for them and collecting the requisite number of signatures needed to officially establish up a union. They set up a bonfire with toasted marshmallows, held cookouts and barbecues, gave away free food and even served up some of Chris’ aunt’s home cooked meals.
His David and Goliath story is now being told in Union, a new documentary by Stephen Maing and Brett Story, which has just been shortlisted for an Oscar. In the film, viewers get an insight into how hard Chris and his team had to fight.
‘The pay and working conditions are a nightmare’, one picker tells the documentary, while a colleague admits they felt ‘like a slave.’ Another worker explains how her sister, who was a sorter, died from Covid when she didn’t have any protective gear. One had to sleep in the car outside the warehouse because he couldn’t afford his rent.
The documentary also depicts Chris’ arrest for trespassing on Amazon property.
‘The police were probably called on us over 30 times. There were so many trials and tribulations that we had to go through just to stay out there. The day I was arrested, I was literally dropping off pasta for the workers,’ remembers Chris.
‘As a black man in America, I’ve been dealing with the police my whole life. The NYPD was the precinct that killed Eric Garner, over a decade ago, which started the Black Lives Matter movement.’
Chris was put on probation for six months, meaning if he got arrested again, he would be sent to jail, and was lucky not to end up with a criminal record.
Every time he and his team succeeded in gathering support, Amazon would go one better. If they provided food, Amazon set up food stalls outside. As Chris sent out leaflets, Amazon posted its warehouse with anti-union rhetoric stating: ‘Get informed, ask how, vote no’. And as support for advocacy gathered, Amazon bought in union busters who would hold ‘training sessions’ during work hours.
Amazon’s opposition was frustrating for Chris. ‘They were spending millions of dollars on union-busting when they could have just given us the raise we were asking for. To see it happen in real time was just unbelievable,’ he says.
‘They didn’t take us seriously at first. They took us as a joke. We saw them scaling up. They were flying them in every week, people from all over the world. So we would play chess with the company. If we made a move, they made a move. That’s when I realised we had to always stay two steps ahead.’
Chris spent nearly a year outside the warehouse, with three kids at home during the pandemic, costing him family time he will never get back. But he says he has to do it to protect workers – many of whom are physically injured in the warehouses.
‘But that’s a sacrifice we all made. For everyone that started the union, we have really been going through it. We have our moments where it gets really difficult on a personal level. But I think that’s what also makes us stronger.
‘These are real people’s lives. People need to understand that these are workers that come from their communities, their neighbours, their loved ones, their friends and family. By giving our money to Jeff Bezos we’re destroying our own communities. We’re destroying our own neighbourhoods, and we’re exploiting ourselves.’
However, Chris’ hard work paid off. In April 2022, the ballot count concluded with 2,654 workers in favour of unionising and 2,131 voting against, officially resulting with the creation of the Amazon Labor Union as the first independent Amazon union in the United States.
‘It was one of the best days of my life, next to my kids’ births,’ he says. ‘I wish that we could have spread that joy to everybody in the world. Because I believe every worker should feel vindicated for the work that they do.’
Yet while it was one of the most successful labour campaigns the world has ever seen, despite its win, Amazon has refused to begin contract negotiations with the union, instead, embarking on a series of legal challenges in the hope of overturning the result of the ballot.
Earlier this year, ALU affiliated with the labour union the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to become ALU-IBT and Chris fights on. He’s now gearing up to organise a nationwide strike action because Amazon will not meet its legal obligations to bargain with workers. He is also working with various organisations worldwide and has created a company called International Solidarity through which he provides consulting.
‘Going back to Amazon is not an option for me,’ he explains. ‘I’m proud that I helped pave the way for many others not to endure the same conditions I once had to.
‘No amount of money in the world can amount to the power of people when we come together. We’ve proven with our victory going up against Amazon, that ordinary people can come together and take on the richest and most powerful company and man in the world.
‘Now Jeff Bezos needs to do the right thing and listen to his workers.’
Amazon was contacted by Metro for comment.
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