When former Amazon worker Chris Smalls organized a small protest in front of a huge Amazon warehouse in New York two years ago, he had no intention of starting a years-long dispute with one of the world’s largest companies. He just wanted his team to be able to do their job safely.
“When the pandemic came, the staff below me got sick,” he says. “I realized something was wrong.”
Amazon fired him citing quarantine violations. But his concerns caught the world’s attention — an early sign that a much larger labor dispute is brewing at the e-commerce giant.
In the months that followed, as business skyrocketed thanks to the pandemic, Amazon faced allegations around the world of neglecting employee welfare – allegations it denies.
In the United States, the company is now faced with the worst labor unrest in decades.
After strikes and protests across the country, workers at three warehouses in New York and Alabama are deciding whether to join a union in what would be a first for Amazon in the US.
Mr. Smalls is one of the leaders in the fight.
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He says he’s taking on a role the shopping giant laid out in a leaked 2020 memo, which described Mr Smalls as “not smart or articulate” and argued that it would help if he “did the face of the whole union/organizational movement” would undermine it.
Mr Smalls, who worked at Amazon for more than four years and started as a junior before being promoted, said he was caught off guard by the memo, which some felt was racist, although Amazon told reporters at the time that the author was unaware that Mr. Smalls was black.
“My whole life changed in a minute,” says the father of two. “From then on, I tried to get her to eat her words.”
For 11 months, the 33-year-old and his team staked out a spot across from his former place of work, the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, intercepting employees on their way home to argue they need a union to fight for negotiations with them the e-commerce giant.
Among other things, his team is striving for higher pay, longer breaks, more paid time off and paid sick leave. They want to convince workers that a union is a more effective way to raise grievances about regulations, such as one requiring employees to work unscheduled overtime.
Voting on the question began on March 25th and the result will be announced in the coming days. Amazon faces a second election next month at a smaller warehouse in the same industrial park.
Organizers say the future of American workers is at stake, citing Amazon’s ranking as the second largest employer in the US.
“We need to shut down Amazon. We need these workers to organize,” says Derrick Palmer, who helped Mr Smalls organize his protest in 2020 and was also disciplined (but not fired) by Amazon, who cited social distancing violations. “We need them to know that they have the power.”
Amazon fended off a similar union organizing initiative in Alabama last year, convincing workers to vote 2-1 against the idea.
The vote — the first the company had faced in the United States since its inception in 1994 — looked decisive. But regulators later called for a rerun, saying Amazon broke rules protecting the right to organize during the campaign.
Officials began counting the results of that vote on March 28.
John Logan, a professor of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, says it’s remarkable that activists have even got as far as an election given how much American laws favor employers.
Union membership in the US fell again last year, continuing a decade-long decline despite a surge in activism that led to successful campaigns at Starbucks, the media and some smaller retailers.
“Something has definitely changed in the last two years when it comes to the landscape of work in the United States, and … the voices of the Amazon Union reflect that change,” says Prof. Logan.
“It would be a monumental event if one of the unions [in New York] were up for grabs. But even if they lost when the results are close, I still think it will lead to more union activity in Amazon warehouses across the country.”
Last year, after the Alabama election, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos promised the company would treat its employees better, including addressing the company’s high injury rate.
“Despite everything we’ve accomplished, I realize we need a better vision for our people’s success,” he wrote in his final letter to shareholders before stepping down as CEO.
Amazon – which US regulators have accused of illegally retaliating against organizers of workers on their staff – remains staunchly anti-union.
The company says it offers competitive pay and benefits, and a union will only add a new layer of bureaucracy while membership dues eat away at workers’ wages.
To combat the campaigns, the company has inundated workers with texts, flyers and other materials, and has repeatedly held mandatory training sessions on the issue, during which they have cast doubt on the union’s ability to make improvements for its members.
“Our employees have a choice whether or not to join a union,” said spokeswoman Kelly Nantel. “As a company, we don’t believe that unions are the best answer for our employees. Our focus remains on working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work.”
Amazon has urged workers to vote, warning that if the election is dominated by pro-union forces and the union emerges victorious, they will all be represented in the warehouses concerned.
“Negotiations are always a give and take,” warns an Amazon representative in audio provided by organizers of a meeting in New York. “What is important to them [Amazon Labor Union] maybe not important to you. They will be willing to trade your priorities for one of their priorities.”
A union victory in New York is far from certain.
Leroy Hairston, 22, who has been working at the JFK8 warehouse in New York for about two months – not unusual in a place with high turnover – tells the BBC he is opposed to the union. He considers it inexperienced and would have difficulty making changes, making solving staffing issues more complicated,
“I don’t get the point,” he says. “Everything will be extended instead of just going to HR.”
Mr Smalls says he hopes New York – where one in five workers are unionized – offers better conditions for victory than Alabama, a notoriously anti-union state.
He also has contacts with more than a dozen other warehouses across the country, which he hopes to unionize should he prove victorious.
“Once we get established here, we want to spread like wildfire,” says Mr. Smalls.
Over the past month, Amazon Labor Union volunteers have made a concerted last-ditch effort to persuade undecided workers.
Julian Mitchell-Israel, a 22-year-old community activist who took a job at Amazon to join the union effort, estimates her odds of winning at just over 50%.
At a stormy rally at Staten Island’s industrial park this month, Mr. Smalls appeared unabashed in a red hoodie and sneakers. Surrounded by workers, union activists and politicians, he led the small crowd in a chant: “We will win! We will win!”
Mickie Garson, 50, who has worked at Amazon for three years and who drove by on her day off to listen to the union, surveyed the scene from the Amazon parking lot, which was several lanes away from the speakers.
She said she stayed “on the fence” despite experience in previous jobs that made her confident a unionized workplace would be better.
“It’s the pressure of knowing we can make history,” she says. “We’re excited about the fact that it could happen, but what happens after that?”
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