More Amazon Union-Busting
By 
Jeff Bezos is going to go all-in on union busting. He and other Amazon execs will do anything possible to keep Amazon anti-union. They won that first vote in Alabama. But now workers are organizing in Staten Island. This also seems to be not a particularly well-organized campaign and is unlikely to succeed. The workers, dominated evidently by a cadre of leftists, decided to go without the support of an actual union because they wanted to be independent of any organization. Well, that can work but it hardly ever does. Especially when you are facing Amazon. But whatever, that’s up to the workers. What matters here is that Bezos and friends are willing to stop at nothing to make sure this facility does not unionize. Including using state security forces, i.e., the NYPD.
The battle between labor organizers and an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island is turning ugly ahead of a union vote this month—one that could make the New York package hub the company’s first facility with a unionized workforce.
Last week, the NYPD arrested three union activists at the warehouse after a manager complained that one of them was trespassing. Chris Smalls, a former employee and thorn in the side of billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, was delivering catered chicken and pasta for a union luncheon when at least five cops confronted him in the facility’s visitor parking lot and demanded he leave.
Bystander footage revealed the local precinct’s top cop showed up to the 911 call targeting Smalls, who is president of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and fighting to unionize the “fulfillment center” known as JFK8. Amazon’s war with Smalls has been simmering since 2020, when he led a walkout over unsafe working conditions during COVID. At the time, Vice exposed internal memos indicating that Bezos and other Amazon bigwigs discussed a plan to smear Smalls by calling him “not smart or articulate” and make him “the face of the entire union/organizing movement” to discredit unionization. Critics and union crusaders decried the comments about Smalls, who is Black, as racist.
Smalls formed ALU in April of 2021. “Ironically they made me the face of the whole unionizing effort,” he told The Daily Beast. “So I said, ‘OK, good idea.’”
During Smalls’ arrest, an NYPD Deputy Inspector declared, “Listen, we’re going to ask you to, on behalf of Amazon—” before Smalls interrupted in surprise: “You’re protecting Amazon, now?” The cop answered, “I’m not protecting anyone. You’re trespassing.” An assistant general manager, who fired Smalls in 2020, was captured in the video looking on as police addressed his former foe.
Moments later, cops handcuffed employee organizers Brett Daniels and Jason Anthony for obstruction of government administration. The workers had challenged officers for accosting Smalls, and one officer warned Daniels not to get too close and pushed him away. Daniels appeared to push back before he was tackled. Police then frisked Smalls for weapons against a squad car and charged him with obstruction, resisting arrest and trespassing. Before he left, one officer told a worker recording the incident: “We won. You lost.”
The episode marked another clash between the ALU—a crowdfunded and worker-led effort—and the $1.6-trillion multinational corporation that is America’s second-largest private employer behind Walmart. The e-commerce behemoth is simultaneously battling two historic union votes: at JFK8 and at a Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse known as BHM1. (Bessemer voted against unionization last spring, but federal labor officials ordered a do-over after finding Amazon had illegally pressured employees to reject it.)
This level of intimidation would be harder with a real union, but it’s not as if Amazon wouldn’t try. This is a very evil company and organizing it needs to be a consistent goal for the organized labor movement.