Image: Via amazonlaborunion.org; Chris Smalls, President, ALU
On Friday 1 April, one of America’s largest employers suffered a stunning defeat as the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), became the company’s first US-based union following an election win. Almost two years after being fired by Amazon for leading protests against unsafe COVID protocols at a Staten Island, New York warehouse, Chris Smalls, the President of the ALU and leader of this movement, is ready to continue taking the fight to Amazon for workers’ rights.
With over a million employees in the US, Amazon has been exposed on several occasions for some of its abysmal working conditions. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s Executive Chairman, however repeatedly touts Amazon as a great place to work, preferring to focus on the company's perks such as its decision in recent years to increase the minimum salary of its workers to $15 an hour.
Tweets from a 2020 viral Twitter thread where current and former Amazon workers shared their experiences in the workplace
The magnitude of this union victory is immense as Amazon has repeatedly used its significant resources and the full extent of its influence to stop the ALU’s work. For instance, the company had Smalls and other organizers arrested for trespassing earlier this year while they were sharing union materials and delivering food to the warehouse parking lot. And last year alone, Amazon spent over $4 million on labor consultants that it brought on board to persuade workers not to unionize. In comparison, the ALU has relied on a GoFundMe campaign, Tiktok videos, cookouts, bus stop meetings and other grassroots tactics to spread its message among the Amazon labor force.
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Once described by an Amazon lawyer in a leaked memo as “not smart, or articulate”, Smalls credited those words as part of the motivation behind his decision to start the ALU. Following this historic victory though, Smalls still envisions ongoing challenges in improving the conditions for workers at the Staten Island warehouse, and expects a continuation of Amazon’s delay tactics when it comes to the next step of negotiations. Some of the immediate changes the ALU is demanding from Amazon include paid time off for the remainder of the day when a worker is injured at work; and the reinstating of 20-minute breaks (as opposed to the current practice of 5-minute breaks).
The ALU is rightly proud of this first significant step that it managed to achieve without any affiliations to an existing or established labor union. Smalls and his team have proven that their deliberate and unconventional grassroots approach to mobilizing works, and hope that the ALU’s success may prove to be a catalyst for other Amazon workers to follow suit, creating other unions and a ripple effect of change for employees throughout the company.
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