NPI at Netroots Nation 2022: Talking worker organizing, ALU’s future with Chris Smalls

Wel­come to the sev­enth install­ment of NPI at Net­roots Nation 2022, a spe­cial lim­it­ed pod­cast series record­ed live from the David L. Lawrence Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in Pitts­burgh. NPI staff jour­neyed to Steel City this past week to par­tic­i­pate in the nation’s largest annu­al gath­er­ing of pro­gres­sive activists.

As part of our con­fer­ence cov­er­age, we’re bring­ing you a series of con­ver­sa­tions with key move­ment lead­ers and elect­ed officials.

In this install­ment of NPI@NN, we’re hon­ored to be joined by Chris Smalls, lead orga­niz­er and pres­i­dent of the Ama­zon Labor Union! Press play below to lis­ten to the audio, or read the tran­script below.

Listen

Read the transcript

(Note: this tran­script has been edit­ed light­ly for clarity) 

CAYA: Wel­come to NPI at Net­roots Nation ‘22, a spe­cial lim­it­ed pod­cast series from the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute record­ed live from the David L. Lawrence Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia! I’m your host, Caya Berndt. We are so glad to have you with us. 

For this install­ment, we are thrilled to be joined by Ama­zon Labor Union orga­niz­er and Pres­i­dent, Chris Smalls. Thank you for join­ing us, Chris! 

CHRIS: Absolute­ly. Thank you for hav­ing me. 

CAYA: Yeah. Thank you for join­ing us. So, [could you pro­vide] just a brief intro­duc­tion for our lis­ten­ers, tell us about who you are and what you do. 

CHRIS: Yeah, I’m a for­mer Ama­zon employ­ee that was hired back in 2015. I became a process assis­tant, or bet­ter known as assis­tant man­ag­er, my first year, was in that posi­tion for four and a half years. And in 2020 of March, I was fired for lead­ing a walk­out over COVID-19. After that, Jeff Bezos him­self, along with his gen­er­al coun­sel, who had a meet­ing call­ing me “not smart, inar­tic­u­late,” iron­i­cal­ly, to make me the face of the whole union­iz­ing efforts.

And from that moment on, I began to advo­cate for work­er’s rights and protest across the coun­try, until about April 20th, 2021, when we found­ed the Ama­zon Labor Union, and we began our cam­paign, which I spent over three hun­dred days at the bus stop until we were suc­cess­ful on April 1st, 2022, when we vot­ed to become the first union in Amer­i­can his­to­ry for Amazon.

CAYA: Oh my gosh. That must have been an incred­i­ble feeling. 

CHRIS: Absolutely.

CAYA: So, there is a lot going on with the Ama­zon Labor Union right now. So how’s the orga­ni­za­tion’s progress going, and what are the next steps with that union? Do you have any plans to try to help oth­er Ama­zon loca­tions unionize?

CHRIS: Yeah, absolute­ly. We just filed for an elec­tion in Albany, New York, three days ago. So we have oth­er build­ings that will be going pub­lic soon, and there’ll be more to come after that. Peo­ple and work­ers con­tact us every sin­gle day, every sin­gle week, ask­ing for our support. 

And we’re going with the cam­paigns that are most ready, and I can tell you now, we have plen­ty. Plen­ty of them that are going to be going pub­lic soon, and we’re excit­ed to help launch these cam­paigns nationwide. 

CAYA: And so the Action Net­work [which] you’re part­ner­ing with, I’m under­stand­ing that they’re help­ing you build on your orga­niz­ing infra­struc­ture. How is that part­ner­ship going, and how do you think that will help your efforts going forward? 

CHRIS: Yeah, well, it’s a great tool to use. We had train­ing today with my orga­niz­ers, that’s in the build­ing. They’re all recep­tive to it, very well, and they’re look­ing for­ward to using it ‘cause it’s gonna help them orga­nize the data that we need to con­tin­ue our cam­paigns and con­tin­ue to help oth­ers get involved, ’cause things will be a lot eas­i­er. We have to fight pow­er with pow­er and, and cre­at­ing tools on our side to help work­ers orga­nize. That’s what it’s all about as well. 

CAYA: So, wealthy cor­po­ra­tions like Ama­zon, they prof­it off of des­per­a­tion. They take advan­tage of pover­ty and des­per­a­tion to exploit work­ers, and it seems like with Ama­zon, but also Star­bucks and oth­er small­er retail loca­tions and food­ser­vice loca­tions across Amer­i­ca, there seems to be more inter­est in union orga­niz­ing, in a way that there has­n’t real­ly been in the past. Do you think that there has been a big­ger inter­est in peo­ple want­i­ng to shift the bar­gain­ing pow­er back to the work­ers? Is that some­thing you’ve observed? And if so, why do you think that is?

CHRIS: Well, there’s def­i­nite­ly a shift in labor right now, but we still have a long ways to go. You know, the cred­it’s real­ly gonna be giv­en to the work­ers that are orga­niz­ing. We’re forc­ing these com­pa­nies to pret­ty much come to the table, and we’re forc­ing these com­pa­nies to lis­ten to us now, because we’re say­ing “enough is enough” as the work­ing class.

We haven’t been giv­en our fair share for quite some time. 

We’re talk­ing about decades, and now we’re in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, and cor­po­ra­tions have been accu­mu­lat­ing bil­lions and tril­lions of dol­lars for too long. And the pan­dem­ic was eye-open­ing to the work­ing class, that we’re essential. 

We have to fight for more than what we’ve been getting.

And I think to get com­pa­nies to come to the bar­gain­ing table, it only starts on the shop floor and with the work­ers. And what you’re see­ing now is oth­er indus­tries of all kinds, even first-timers, are start­ing to real­ize that they deserve a lot more. And I think we’re in the time where this win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty for labor is just as sig­nif­i­cant — or if not even big­ger — than the Great Depres­sion. So that’s where we at right now. Labor has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ly change the future of this coun­try. And the Ama­zon Labor Union is a cat­a­lyst of that as well. 

CAYA: What do you think are some of the biggest chal­lenges for these new gen­er­a­tions of organizers?

CHRIS: Well, the biggest chal­lenge is under­stand­ing the fight that we are in. Under­stand­ing that it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. 

You’re gonna take some loss­es. You’re gonna take some wins, small vic­to­ries. Some days where you’re gonna feel defeat­ed. But you have to just stay resilient and stay the course, because, you know, cor­po­ra­tions and bil­lion­aires, they thrive off of divi­sive­ness, and we have to under­stand that the only way we’re gonna be able to defeat them is the pow­er of the peo­ple com­ing together. 

CAYA: What were some of the things, and they could be big or small, that kept you on your course, or kept you push­ing through? Because I can imag­ine that there were prob­a­bly some days where it seemed like some­thing like a union was out of reach.

CHRIS: You know, I would­n’t say I had any doubt with our cam­paign. The only thing that was chal­leng­ing is fig­ur­ing out, how do we get to our goal. 

Who cre­ates unions in 2022? 

CAYA: Ama­zon does!

CHRIS: [Laughs] Ama­zon! It’s not an every­day thing. So just fig­ur­ing out how the process works. And obvi­ous­ly, of course, the union-bust­ing tac­tics of Ama­zon. We had to stay two steps ahead, and play chess with them as well.

The most chal­leng­ing thing I could say through­out the cam­paign was the with­draw­al the first time, not hav­ing the cards because Ama­zon fired a thou­sand work­ers with­in six months.

But even through that, I knew that if we kept our core intact, that we’d be just fine, and stay­ing the course, and get­ting back to the basics, stay­ing ground­ed. That’s all it took, because we showed the work­ers that we cared for one anoth­er, and we cre­at­ed a cul­ture that Ama­zon just sim­ply does­n’t have.

CAYA: And have you been get­ting any assis­tance from old­er unions or larg­er unions? 

CHRIS: No, no. We, in the begin­ning, had noth­ing. It was just us out there, tabling chairs as work­ers. A lot of peo­ple doubt­ed us, includ­ing estab­lished unions, and they did­n’t think that we would succeed. 

So we did­n’t get near­ly as much help as any oth­er campaign. 

And we’re fine, ’cause we did it our way and it worked out. 

CAYA: Yeah, absolute­ly. So, going for­ward, how can any­body sup­port the Ama­zon Labor Union efforts right now? 

CHRIS: Yeah, they can def­i­nite­ly donate to our sol­i­dar­i­ty fund. Also our strike fund, at our web­site, www.amazonlaborunion.org. Also, get involved. If you’re on the ground in New York City, Labor Day, we’re gonna be in the streets at Jeff Bezos’ house. If you see any cam­paigns in your local area, get involved. Same thing goes for Star­bucks work­ers as well.

CAYA: Thank you. So, we are just about at time. Before we wrap up, I just wan­na ask you one ques­tion that I ask every­body at the end of inter­views: The last cou­ple of years have been real­ly hard. This year has had its pun­ish­ing moments. So dur­ing some of these unprece­dent­ed times or prece­dent­ed times, just dur­ing these times, what is bring­ing you joy right now?

CHRIS: Oh, just see­ing the inspi­ra­tion. And the joy and ener­gy from oth­er peo­ple being inspired by our cam­paign. We know that we did some­thing mon­u­men­tal, and we’re very proud of our­selves, and for us to suc­ceed, it’s real­ly bring­ing hope to every­body. So that’s what real­ly keeps me going, is know­ing that we’re doing it for the greater good and the big­ger picture.

CAYA: Thank you very much for join­ing us today. 

That was Chris Smalls here at Net­roots Nation 2022! Join us next time for our next install­ment, and we’re gonna be hear­ing from some oth­er fan­tas­tic inter­vie­wees. Until next time, for NPI, I’m Caya Berndt.

For lis­ten­ers who want to donate to the Ama­zon Labor Union, you can vis­it their web­site at www.amazonlaborunion.org, or donate to the Ama­zon Labor Union Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action Fund.