u/GeMingANT17

I work in an Amazon fulfillment center, and this author is correct to excoriate Smalls. Here's why.

I've played shy (clumsily) about my whole deal when i've chimed in here before. i'm a salt who's been one of several placed in an Amazon warehouse a few hours outside NYC. I've been there for three years and counting, we have an organizing committee that's been above ground and agitating openly for almost three years now, and we're in the middle of signing union cards (this information is widely known about me and my unit by management at this time, no more need for as much discretion on social media).

I was trained and placed by the Amazon Teamsters division, i am not paid by them but our outside team mostly draws a check from AT. Without them we would be floundering in here, without us their campaign would be nonexistant. However humiliating it might be to admit, the salts drive the organizing, in dozens of facilities across the country and all of the ones that have successfully reached majority on cards since the ALU election at JFK8 (Staten Island). I'm literally tapping sentences in between stows on my order picker so that i can make rate and not be seen by a manager with my phone.

I've spent a good deal of that time on the picket line and in a lot of meetings with the leaders of many organizing efforts in lots of Amazon buildings, especially in NYC. i'm second party to the original crew from JFK8, but i know many of them (fucking heroes), and me and mine had to deal with the fallout from what Chris Smalls caused, a state of disarray that management took full advantage of across the country for years afterwards.

The leaders remaining there and elsewhere are a mix of middle class kids who went to college and salted, and organic leaders from the shop floor. All of the ones who stuck around have earned their keep many times over. using identity politics to sideline the salts is kinda rich coming from y'all. those of us who have slipped disks and had hernias moving boxes for Daddy Jeff, and can still consistently get nervous, frustrated coworkers to come to a meeting, deserve more respect than that.

By the end of his run as ALU prez, Smalls led an insular and abusive clique of loyalists, who were dictatorial and weird towards everyone else at JFK8 and LDJ5 who were desperately trying to keep the initiative alive. His organizing at all the other facilities, the apparent justification for his tour and fundraising, was paper thin. the workers committees in Albany NY and Bessemer AL collapsed after their failed elections, and the ALU organizing at KCVG outside Cinncinati pre-Teamster affiliation created a lot of burnt turf that we're still dealing with. Further, Smalls' yearslong organizing against Teamster affiliation set back early attempts to unify the efforts of the workers' committees in other city burroughs and across the northeast. This even helped create an opening for an attempted takeover of the organizing in several facilities by a cult called the Maoist Communist Union, and trust me, be warned about those people.

You guys and the author are right; real working class leaders from the shop floor, with undeniable energy and rizz, are a must if this fight is going to be successful. Say whatever you like about Chris' admirable participation in the flotillas. But following Chris' example is celebrity chasing at best, and at worst can damage the organizing even more effectively than over-involvement from bougie professionals from the "nyc organizing scene." I work in a building where the majority of workers are Latino and black, and most voters in this building went for Trump in 2024. there's name recognition of Chris Smalls here, but much more familiarity with the shit show that followed in his wake. management made sure of that.

The Teamsters are far from perfect and the level of helpfulness of one local or another to the regional Amazon organizing efforts varies wildly. But the unity and strike capability that their resources have made possible is unmatched by any of the other organizing efforts right now, no disrespect intended to the veteran fighters of CAUSE.

At this point, most of the key Amazon Teamster division staffers on the outside team are former leaders from inside who got injured or fired, have real talent, and are the best prepared people on earth to support the inside teams. And the best part is? They are avowed comrades all.
For those of you on the outside, who have some form of opinion or another about this article and the issues it touches on, I have good news. If you want to make a difference, you don't have to wait to take your picture with Brace Belden on on international trip, nor for Ben Gvir to scream in your face while your hands are zip tied behind your back. There are Amazonian employees who die on the shift all the time, and many of them have even been to union meetings (one in my building).

If you want class war on the front lines, then get involved. Reach out to Amazon Teamsters via their social media. Amazon web services LLC will basically hire anyone with a pulse who can pass a drug test. More rigorous, however, will be your interview with a Teamster organizer who might be willing to help set up a network with you. You have to prove that you're not a total misanthropic dork, and that you can take on assignments. The rest is up to you.

(edited for spelling, and to break up choppy paragraphs)