Flanked by fellow activists celebrating their victorious fight to form Amazon’s first warehouse union in the United States, Christian Smalls popped a bottle of champagne. “This is the catalyst for the revolution,” he declared before assembled news reporters last spring.
Eight months on, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) has yet to expand beyond a single facility on Staten Island, New York known as JFK8. While that battle swiftly prompted talk of a nationwide war to mobilise the workforce of the world’s largest retailer, the triumph has yet to be reflected elsewhere.
“You really don’t understand the magnitude of it until you travel the country,” Smalls, 34, said. “We really created something that’s not going to go away. It’s here for ever . . . and companies and billionaires are gonna have to get used to the new style of organising that we created.”
Having established a base near the JFK8 fulfilment centre — scene of its first, unexpected, success — the union is plotting its next steps amid high anticipation. Smalls has been transformed into a prominent, albeit unconventional, figure on the political stage. He has met President Biden, testified to senators and featured on the cover of New York Magazine. Smalls is “making good trouble”, Biden said. “Let’s keep it going.”
However, Amazon workers in Albany, New York, rejected unionisation in October, the same result as at a different facility on Staten Island in May.
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Smalls blamed these defeats on a lack of experience on the ground. While lead organisers at JFK8 had worked for Amazon for six or seven years, he said some at the other sites had been around for less than two. “They don’t have the type of lead organisers that have been around Amazon that long,” Smalls said. “They’re not as invested as the other organisers at JFK8.”
ONT8, a facility in Moreno Valley, California, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, is “probably going to be our next target”, Smalls said. There is “some buzz,” too, in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Amazon said its employees “have the choice” of whether to join a union. “As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees,” a spokeswoman said. Frontline jobs in fulfilment and transportation in the US came with average pay of more than $19 per hour, she added, and benefits including health and dental insurance.
In two interviews with news organisations last year, Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive, said workers were “better off” without a union.
The remarks prompted a complaint from the federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Smalls argued they were akin to union busting. The Amazon spokeswoman described this as “completely without merit”, claiming they were protected by the National Labor Relations Act and decades of precedent.
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Both sides are challenging the other’s success. Amazon continues to argue that the ALU and NLRB “improperly influenced” the vote at JFK8. The ALU is appealing against the result near Albany.
Smalls said: “The younger generation is leading the way. We look different, we talk different, we dress different, and that energy also makes organising cool.”
