Goodall, Smalls, and Palmer: What happened in their union for Amazon, and how they’re progressing since they first ran on it
Hmm. I want to turn to that now. Let’s get back to what you all are doing in your warehouse now that you have successfully voted to unionize. Where are the discussions with the company about a contract?
Goodall soon concluded “that the rumors were true,” about Amazon’s harsh working conditions. She witnessed injuries, high turnover, and signs telling workers “No Covid pay. No excuses” in defiance of state law, she says. Someone once came for her when she had a heart condition and it was due to an ambulance showing up outside the warehouse. “When you see it on a daily or weekly basis, it becomes normalized, and people stop questioning it,” she says.
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. There may be errors in the review by human transcribers. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.
Hey, it is Michael. This week, the daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and learning what’s happened in the time since they first ran. We will revisit the story of Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer, two friends and warehouse workers, who beat odds and formed the first union for Amazon, to see how their organizing efforts are progressing. There is a Tuesday on December 27.
New Yark Amazon: How you got to JFK8 and why did you become an Amazon employee? A tribute to New York
I am very thankful that you made time to talk to us because you are in the middle of the biggest moment of your life.
Thank you. Thank you so much. I would like to start by inquiring about how you got to the JFK8 warehouse in the first place and how you got to Amazon. What was it that brought you both there?
I have been employed by Amazon since 2015. I was an entry-level worker, got hired as a picker, a warehouse associate, got promoted into process assistant in my first year, opened up three facilities for Amazon.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
New York Times ‘Amazon’ Union: From PA to PA/Business Development at the New York Mazdaon Union (JFK)
Right, right. At this time, I was already a PA for over four years, trained hundreds of the employees, trained management as well that was hired within the company. And so I applied to relocate to JFK, which it didn’t open yet. It was still under construction. So that was my plan to get into that building upon launch.
I knew that I should have been able to pick my shift and times of work when I was open a new building. But I didn’t get that opportunity. I was thrown onto the worst shift, which is 12 hours of work.
12 hours Thursday, Friday, Saturday — they took my whole weekend away. And I live in New Jersey and didn’t have a vehicle at the time. So my commute was two and a half hours, three hours each way.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
New York Times Observation: Amazon as an Ambassador for the City of New York City in the Presence of Swine Influence. The Case of Jeff Bezos
Oh, I mean, at the time, you know, I was unemployed. I was doing a lot of different temp jobs. I wouldn’t have been at Amazon if it wasn’t for my mother. So my mother —
Yeah. She told me about Amazon. I didn’t really know much about it at the time. I just knew that a lot of people were getting hired at these Amazon facilities. You know what, I said. Let me just try it out and see what happens.
So I thought that Amazon was having worker’s best interest. I thought they were just like, all right, you work hard, you move up. I adapted that philosophy as soon as possible. And I just worked as hard as I could.
Yeah. That’s — in my mind, I was like, you know what? I will be moving up with this company. I’m going to excel because Amazon is such a big name. It did not go that way.
At the time I didn’t know. I thought I just had to work hard and that I would get promoted. But what they did do was they offered me an ambassador position. ambassador are workers who train other workers It was my responsibility to train all the new employees.
So what Chris and Derrick are describing is their experience. It’s part of the company’s design based on our reporting. Jeff Bezos intentionally created the system where the lower-level warehouse jobs were the lower-level warehouse jobs. Those were expected to have a tremendous amount of turnover.
Well, here you have this massive warehouse. It’s serving this huge market. It’s serving New York City. As the swine flu shuts down everything,Amazon is recognizing how important it is for people to have our services. And so what we’re seeing is that right in this period of greatest fear and greatest uncertainty, when every American who can get sent home is going home, Amazon is trying to figure out how to get its staff to work to meet this demand.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
The Dark Side of Work: I’m Going to Go Home and I’ll Go Home with a Friend and a Coworker
Well, it was just the fact that we were in the dark. We did not know what the hell we were doing, we were watching the news and the company was doing something else.
So it was something off in there, something off in the building, with managers, with the communication. And I’m wondering, what the hell is happening here? We’re in the break room sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. There is a person who can tell you. We were sitting there joking, we’re all going to die because we’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, and we’re watching CNN, and they’re telling us we need to be six feet apart with masks.
I was scared the same way. I’m like, the energy in the building was just like, everyone was quiet, and no one knew what the next steps were. We didn’t know what Amazon was going to do. The energy was going on at that time.
Chris got fired, and a lot of workers were scared to speak out about anything in general. So if I’m in the building, I’m showing Amazon that I’m fearless, and I’m not going to give up. I knew if they do something about it, it is what it is. But I’m going to go out with a fight.
I just kept applying pressure on HR. Between now and March 24, I would go in there every day and then ask people what they were going to do. And one of the supervisors that worked the front half of the week, she was walking around sluggish. She had her own mask.
And I looked at her, and I’m like, yo, what’s going on? What are you doing? And then she was like, I don’t feel good. I went to get tested yesterday. I said, wait a second. Do you have a test? They let you — they tested you?
Right. I was like, wait a second. I was watching the news. And obviously, they said in order to get the test, you had to be showing severe symptoms — bloodshot eyes, rosy cheeks. She was showing all of them symptoms.
So I said, you probably need to go home, as a friend and a colleague. She did. She went right home. I promised to take care of your assignments. I’ll do all your engagements. She was tested positive after working for 10 hours in a row around hundreds of people.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
The Building Is a Walk Out Building. When I Walk In, I Get Up Early. I Walk Out. I Drive to the Building, I Walked Through the Bridge
And I was like, am I — I’m looking around like, am I crazy? Like, you, it’s — I’m leaving. I am going to go home. I went upstairs to work with him because I ride with him. The time was noon. I said, yo, we need to get out of here.
The next day, I got back to work and he was with me. We went into the break room after seven o’clock. And at the top of our lungs, we yelling around, yo, we need to do something. We all wanted the building to be closed.
The building is being asked to be shut down because people who were working in the warehouse have tested positive for HIV. That’s your request.
Yeah. We just wanted to be closed for 14 days incubation period, cleaned, and we would have came back to work. And we probably wouldn’t be sitting here today.
Kentucky did a walk out and their governor closed their warehouse. I saw that in the article. And I’m like, why the hell we can’t get that? I said, all right, let’s plan a walk out here.
The media started calling. I’m all right. All right. I’m picking up, telling them, like, yeah, at noon, March 30, it’s going down. And I just kept telling the media that over and over. Yes, we’re planning a walkout. How many people? If I said five people, the media wouldn’t come.
Oh, wow. We got up early because I don’t believe I slept the night before. I think I was like Slim Shady mom’s spaghetti and my stomach was turning. Derrick came to get me. It was like we was going across the bridge, and I’m, like — in my head, I’m like, damn, we’re about to do something, and I don’t even know what it’s going to look like.
I do not know what will happen. Yeah. All these emotions are going through. And we arrive at the building. We saw a helicopter hovering and I knew it was true. There were a row of vans. I’m like, oh, shit. Look what we did.
In five minutes, I see 60 workers, 50 workers, 100 workers coming out. It is like a group of people in the parking lot holding signs.
The workers walked out today because they want the facility to be closed for at least two weeks and sanitized to eliminate the spread of coronaviruses. They’re also asking for —
This is the official explanation of Amazon, thatChris was violating Quarantine. However, I’m going to read you text messages that were sent between two Amazon HR officials on the same day Chris was fired. They were saying things like, come on. They were social distancing as requested. There was a peaceful protest. His right to organize is protected. This is going to be perceived as retaliation — not a good look.”
You have been fired because of the walk out. This email goes against you and is very derogatory. What’s the next thing? What are you going to do?
At that moment, that’s when we decide to continue to advocate for workers. We founded an organization — the Congress of Essential Workers. And I said, you know what? We need to form something that’s going to just bring us in collectively in sort of like a coalition. And we formed this organization.
And we traveled the country starting in New York at Jeff Bezos’ mansions and penthouses that we can Google. We couldn’t find all of them, obviously. We missed a few. We started in New York but missed the one in Miami. And then we went to DC. We went to Beverly Hills. We went to Seattle after that. At that time they started to unionize in Bessemer.
Well, it’s an important period to note because it really seems like Chris and Derrick did not have a lot of momentum. The initial burst of publicity around Chris being fired was over at this point. It just feels like the company has the upper hand.
They’re offering health care on day one and really solid wages. It seems unlikely that a small group of workers will be able to challenge the company in the midst of all this. But then, like Chris says, comes Bessemer.
I was very sure that I supported it 100 percent. We decided to drive 16 hours down there because I supported it so much. And I thought that would be helpful to their efforts. They said no but we would like to do this in the Alabama way. And I said, “whatever the hell that means.” What’s the Alabama way? I don’t know. They did not allow us to rally, so I know what it is. We barely had time to talk to the workers. They told us, like, we don’t really want you to talk to the workers because it’s going to intimidate them even more because you got fired.
His story is a gold mine if you are talking to the workers and convincing them why they need a union. I felt like it was true. You can leave, you guys from New York. We don’t need to bother with you.
It sounds like, Chris and Derrick, Jodi, you’re all saying a version of the same thing. There was a top-down approach from the organizers of the big national union, and they were not connecting with the workers. And, Jodi, you’re saying that’s a pretty conventional, traditional, old-school approach, and put it all together, it just didn’t succeed.
Yes, right. And the reason this matters — and correct me if I’m wrong, Jodi — is that when it comes to a union vote in a place like Bessemer, every single worker’s vote counts.
The fight has been going on for a long time. But the initial vote there to form a union, that did fail. And when that happened, what a lot of people just said was, OK, the conventional wisdom is true. You can’t organize an Amazon warehouse.
Yeah. The main reason for me was going down there and seeing how Bessemer handled their campaign — the fact that they weren’t engaging with these workers was a red flag, so —
It’s about working with a union. I think unions have been around for a long time. They have their own approach. We knew it was going to be hard. It was harder, obviously — no resources, no money. That is what unions provide. The fact that we are able to connect with them and that we are the workers was all we needed to know.
We didn’t hesitate. When it was over, there were people on my team who were saying we should wait. They wanted to study Jane McAlevey. They wanted to study it all. They did. We signed up for the courses. I never got a chance to take them. You know, Derrick was working.
So I said, let’s go while the Iron is hot. And also, I thought in my head, I said, how the hell are we going to listen to expertise when this has never been done before? In reality, we the experts. We invested into the company. We know what goes on at the company.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
The New York amazon union: How did you get started? (It’s the first step in forming a union)
OK. After you had the experience in Alabama, you go back to New York. Tell us how you go about building your own union.
We didn’t know what to do. We went to walmart, picked up a couple of tables, four chairs, and a tent for $150, and spent it all on GoFundMe. And we went out to JFK8, and we said, all right, let’s stay here by the bus stop. We found that spot.
In the beginning, it was nothing. I was out there by myself, literally. I would go there, set up the whole setup by myself on hot summer days and sit out there for hours just like that, sit —
Feet up, waiting for workers to get off the bus. And I would just catch them. I was attempting to get as many people as possible. We didn’t have a clear idea of what we were doing. We were like, yo, I need you to sign up. We’re going to form a union. We did not have a lot to offer. We had authorization cards and a pamphlet. It’s all done.
Yes. They are the first step in forming a union. You need enough cards signed from workers to show that you have enough support to even trigger an election. Once you get enough signatures — typically it’s 30 percent —
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
I know I am an Insider, so I will be the voice of the Insider in the ALU Building, and I grew up on the bus stop
No time was wasted by Amazon. The first day, as soon as we set up, they came right over. You can not be here. Dude coming over there yelling at us. He threatened to call the cops. We said to call them. He will not call them.
Yes. We have the shirts from the Congress Of Essential Workers. So I’m wearing it throughout the building. I am letting Amazon know that my stance is mine and then they will make a decision. I’m going to continue to work. I will be the voice of the associates inside the facility.
Do not speak to the ALU members. They’re a group of workers with no experience as far as having a union. They were saying, oh, you will have to pay dues If you sign this card, it will be recorded. So they were just throwing all types of jabs at us.
To ease the tension I have to let them know that I am an Insider and that they must sign this authorization card. There will be no penalty for signing the card. We need to get support to organize an election so that we can have a union. Every day — I’ll be talking to workers every single day. They would either sign the card inside the building, or if they didn’t sign the card inside, I’d go out there and talk to Chris. And it worked.
I had an outside game. They had the knowledge of the game. And every day, shift change — we know that we were about to see 600 to 800 workers getting on and off this bus. Then it came to the point where we already signed them all up. We had to change our strategy because we asked the same people that signed it, so we had to sign it differently.
We were only focused on the days. So now it’s like, all right, we got to do the overnight. We have to get the night shift so I am telling the team that they must stay into the morning. And night shift was lovely. We had nights on lock from the moment we started. People love the fact that we was out there setting up bonfires and —
We were cooking s’mores. We were singing and playing music. It felt like we built a community right there at the bus stop. It basically — sometimes we’d be out there praying, holding hands, crying, singing. You can’t explain how the emotions were going on. It was spiritual.
And that’s when I knew this is going to work. We were like a glimmer of hope for these workers because when they got out of the bus, if we wasn’t there, they were like, yo, where was y’all?
And then think about it — how we were saying we went to Bessemer, and they weren’t engaging with the workers. We had to make sure we did that consistently.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
What York Amazon did to save us: How I am thankful for what I saw last year and how I’m going to remember what I did
I heard people say they signed up because of what they saw last year. We didn’t get what we deserved. We did all we could to preserve our personal lives. Amazon’s 24/7 — so I would tell my team that every time we’re not there, we’re losing. Two of us need to be out there, one of us has to be there. You have to be there no matter what you are doing.
We would have our alarm set on our phone to wake them up, so they’d know when to leave. The workers seeing us there consistently helped to ease the tension.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
When I Was Getting Paid for Getting an Uber: It Turned Into a Food Truck. The Case of the Unionization of General Motors
We was giving out marijuana. We were giving out books. We were giving out stuff. We were helping workers just — we were paying for people’s Ubers. One time a worker came out with high blood pressure. He needed to get to the hospital — $100 Uber, go to the hospital. Amazon refused to pay for it. He was told to get on the bus. We were doing everything we could, even if it took one person. We signed the national agreement. That was in December. Now we switched up our strategy again.
Sure. So this is a really important thing that happens. They get a landmark settlement from the National Labor Relations Board that allows them to organize inside the building. The team is spending a lot of time in the break room. And there’s one particular day when Chris himself comes up to the building to deliver food to the workers inside.
Trust me. For them to see me get arrested for giving them food — the people that were undecided or on the fence about the union, they was, like, full-on we with y’all. That was where the turning point was. They lost the election right there.
But if you want to find an example of it happening with a company this big, you’d probably have to go back to the auto workers who unionized General Motors in the 1930s.
I was out at the bus stop. I’m not gonna tell you what I am going to say, but I’ll tell you ya’ll
Our one pro-bono lawyer is not on the side of six multi-billion dollar lawyers. And then we sit in the front. Two people are allowed to be together. One on each side get to sit at the table in front of the ballot count.
There are at most four or five board agents. Two or three of them are opening up the ballots and preparing them to be read in a smooth fashion. One person is reading them. The two others are looking at them. And it’s from right to left, pretty much. We are sitting in front of the small table watching them say yes or no as they are sliding.
When we got down to the last two boxes, and we were up 300, 400, they’re not coming back from that. I looked over their shoulder and saw that I was right, we were good.
Yeah. I made a gesture at the cameras. I was telling people not to be nervous. We have this. I am not going to lie. Several members of my team thought we lost too. I will not call them out.
I was out at that bus stop, but I was staring at various articles, quotes and comments, saying, “Y’all don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” We are out here. What y’all want can be said by Y’all. I knew what we were doing. And I was like, they have no idea.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
The New York Amazon Labor Union — What Have We Learned in the Last Few Months? (The New York Times’ Theorem Revisited)
We got a worker’s budget and sometimes no budget. The campaign was built from pure love and caring for one another. That is it. We got contacted by over 50 buildings — different buildings in different states.
People should know me by now. We’re fighters. It is one thing for sure. We’re fighters. We’re going to get a contract whether they like it or not. Whatever it is, we will get it done.
After the break, I called up Derrick once again to find out where things stand with the Amazon Labor Union since it first formed in April. We’ll be right back.
Since we last chatted, it has been about eight months. When we left off last time you and Chris were telling us about how the union vote went your way. I mean, it was historic, and it was enormous. You said at the time that it was just the beginning of a long process. So catch us up on the major developments that have happened since then.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
New York Yankees: Campaigning for the Voting Rights of the Workers in the U.S. Amazon’s Consumer Product Licensing Agreement
Well, we’ve been basically trying to get other campaigns going at different facilities. There was a campaign at LDJ5 in Staten Island. Also, ALB1 — that’s in Albany, New York.
No. Other buildings have begun their campaigns. ONT8 in the Valley of California, San Bernardino — they have their campaign going there. And the way it’s looking, it’s looking like they’ll be able to file the petition for an election soon. But we want to get as many signatures as possible before we just file. As much support as possible will guarantee the workers will vote yes when it is time to vote.
Absolutely. Absolutely. The fulfillment centers are large. We have been aiming at that because there are so many people there. Because the more workers you have that are pro-union across the United States, that’s more pressure for Amazon to come to the table and negotiate a contract.
It isn’t sad, I mean. We have to understand what is happening. You have to understand the dynamics. The Starbucks stores have a large group of people. We have over 8,000 workers, and even though we have to get 30 percent of them to sign authorization cards, we have to get them to vote in an election.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
New York amazon union: How did you go to work? What did you learn in your job at a bus stop, when I was there?
We must get our certifications in order to bargain. So that’s number one, and that should be coming before the new year. We are going to have a bargaining order with Amazon once we get that. But that is a process too. Amazon could appeal that.
Chris left the company, we know from our conversation. He told us he was forced out. You still work there at the same warehouse where you guys unionized. So what has it been like there for you as a worker?
Oh, yes. Yeah. So, just about two weeks ago, myself and Chris and other organizers were at the bus stop — not even on the property, not in the building — at the bus stop on public ground, passing out union literature to workers. And there was a little mini dispute between one of the workers and one of the organizers. I went to work and was suspended for an incident that happened the week before.
I was told that I would be out of work for seven days. And the seven days was up as of yesterday, which was my birthday, actually. So they decided to extend the suspension two more weeks. And I will have to report back to work on the 28th of December, pending this, quote, unquote, investigation.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html
The Daily (Michael Barbaro): The Daily at the Centers of Operation and the New Frontier in Music and Astrophysics
It was interesting. So sketch the future out for me for just a moment. In a year, we will be talking to you. Do you hope this will all look like?
A contract will be signed by 2024. That is the goal. And also, other facilities will be unionized as well. It is just what is going to happen.
Today’s episode was produced by Diana Nguyen and Mooj Zadie, with help from Clare Toeniskoetter and Kaitlin Roberts. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, Michael Benoist, John Ketchum, and Anita Badejo, and contains original music from Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood and Sofia Lanman.
Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks go to Karen Weise, Martin Dicicco, and Steve Maing. That’s it for “The Daily.” I can be described as Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
Labor Unions and Collective Bargaining: Why Have They Become More Progressive? How They’ve Increased Their Wage and Salaried Salaries
A new generation of workers have joined labor at companies that have long positioned themselves as progressive, such as Starbucks and REI. Whether they stay depends on their career prospects and the way they fare in collective bargaining.
A few factors help explain that rise. Public support for unions is at a 60-year high (more on that below). Starbucks was a big player in driving up the number. Starbucks accounted for roughly a quarter of all union elections this year, and the union was victorious in four out of every five elections.
Other notable unions this year include graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, health care workers at Kaiser University and other places, and auto workers at Ultium Cells in Warren, Ohio.
Companies often say unions disrupt their direct relationship with workers. They have made workplace changes and raised wages in an effort to keep employees from unionizing. They have also flooded stores with managers and in some cases, fired pro-union workers citing other, unrelated violations.
The process of getting to a collective-bargaining contract with unionized workers is very slow, and can take up to a year.
Overall, wages this year increased 5.1% over last year. With far more openings than available workers, wages grew even faster at some of the lowest-paying jobs. Adjusting for inflation, wages declined, and many workers felt like they were out of work.
Rail workers didn’t get everything they wanted out of the protracted talks with the freight railroads, but they did get a 7% raise in 2022, with promises of another 8.5% over the next two years, plus cash bonuses every year.
The food service workers at the airport went on strike in September and ended up with a 30% wage increase over two years. They will have a wage of $22 an hour in 2024, a increase of about $17 an hour. The deal included retirement, health insurance, and a bonus.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/27/1145090566/labor-unions-organizing-elections-worker-rights-wages
The support of the U.S. Labor unions for 50 years versus the Soviet Union in 50 years? An updated analysis of the data from the RHIC Labor Labor Data
About 10% of the US workers belong to a union, but most Americans approve of it. That’s a level of support not seen in over 50 years.