Smalls and ALU make a big start in securing workers’ rights at Amazon
E-commerce giant Amazon has long viewed its workers organising under a union as an existential threat, and it has done everything possible to thwart such a possibility. But it ultimately could not prevent one of its former warehouse employees, Christian Smalls from organising the first labour union at the company in the US.
Complaints against working conditions at Amazon warehouses is nothing new. In fact, workers’ rights have always taken a back seat to customer satisfaction. Punishing long hours but with non-commensurate pay, poor medical leave system (mostly related to a convoluted software-based system), high occupational injury rates (three times the industry average in USA, at some warehouses, and that too, according to one of Amazon’s own reports), inadequate leaves, etc. are among the major issues.
The effort started in 2020, when Smalls organised a small walkout by a group of employees at the company’s only fulfilment centre in New York City (NYC), a Staten Island facility known as JFK8, over the lack of worker protection against COVID-19. The company threw him out for violating quarantine rules by attending the walkout. Amazon was confident that its typical tough response would pay off.
But it just hardened his stance. He and his friend from the warehouse, Derrick Palmer, along with a growing band of colleagues, spent about a year canvassing the NYC warehouse’s workers, including through TikTok videos, to join their union and fight for their rights, among which were higher pay, better medical benefits, anti-discrimination policies and a more expansive leave policy.
It was tough work, as they had no affiliation with any national labour organisation. Funding came via a campaign on the crowdfunding platform, GoFundMe, through which they raised $120,000. A pittance, when you consider the more than $4.3 million Amazon spent on anti-union consultants nationwide in 2021.
But perseverance won, ultimately. On April 8 this year, workers at the NYC warehouse voted (2,654 against 2,131) to officially form Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the first-ever workers’ union of the company in USA.
Of course, even after the April victory, it has not been all smooth sailing. A second election, also in April, at another Staten Island warehouse of Amazon, a sorting facility known as LDJ5, resulted in a loss.
A big fight is certainly on on Smalls’ hands. After all, it’s about Amazon, known for its suppressive tactics against the creation of any sort of worker organisation. It has filed a complaint with the National Labor relations Board (NLRB), which oversees labour union elections, contesting the result of the JFK8 election.
Smalls’ and ALU’s efforts continue. In April, Smalls managed to get two of the biggest names in American politics, Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat), to speak for his union at the LDJ5 facility before the union election.
On September 5, which is Labour Day in USA, the union was part of a massive march in New York City, covering, among other places, Amazon founder and executive chairman (and former CEO) Jeff Bezos’ penthouse en route Times Square.
Other unionising efforts are taking place too. In May, another union lost an election at a company facility in the state of Alabama. However, a complaint was filed against Amazon with the NLRB, accusing the company of interfering in the election. Matt Littrell, a 22-year-old picker at the Amazon warehouse in Campbellsville, Kentucky has been trying to organise a union there since early 2021.
These unionising efforts, on for some time now, left Amazon worried even before Smalls’ big victory in forming the first workers’ union. A leaked internal research of the company from mid-2021, a memo based on which the technology news website Recode reviewed last June, says Amazon could run out of people to hire at warehouses in the US by 2024 if the unionising efforts continue, which is leading to increasing worker attrition. As a preventive, the memo stresses—going against the credos of the much-feted Amazon Way—on not prioritising worker productivity over almost everything else (pay, medical benefits, leave, etc.). And now, Smalls’ (and ALU’s) success has strengthened that possibility.
Amazon’s worry over worker attrition reaching alarming proportions is also borne out by the facts of its contesting the results of the JFK8 facility election, involving ALU and its alleged interference in the other Alabama warehouse union election which it won, both mentioned earlier.
A TikTok video tweeted by Chris Smalls on September 9 shows him talking about getting ready for a potential general strike against Amazon in 2024, if the company does not pull up its socks regarding workers’ rights.
