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Who’s Afraid of Chris Smalls? · The Real News Podcast

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Speaker 1: Ah, I got work.
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Speaker 2: Oh right.
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Speaker 3: Welcome every one to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs,
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Speaker 3: dreams and struggles of the working class today. Working People
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Speaker 3: is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network
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Speaker 3: has brought to you in partnership with In These Times
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Speaker 3: magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced
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Speaker 3: by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of
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Speaker 3: listeners like you. My name is Maximilian Alvarez and we've
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Speaker 3: got a really special episode for y'all today, which is
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Speaker 3: a recording of a live event that I recently hosted
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Speaker 3: at Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse here in Baltimore.
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Speaker 3: And for that event, I got to sit down in
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Speaker 3: front of a big, lively audience and have a real
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Speaker 3: deep and wide ranging conversation with Chris Small's co founder
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Speaker 3: and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Chris has
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Speaker 3: a new book out called When the Revolution Comes, A
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Speaker 3: Fight for the Future of the Working Class, and that
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Speaker 3: book recounts the incredible story of how a young working
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Speaker 3: class black man from Hackensack, New Jersey, led a walkout
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Speaker 3: from his Staten Island Amazon warehouse during COVID nineteen, got fired,
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Speaker 3: and then with hardly any resources, banded together with a
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Speaker 3: scrappy group of Staten Island warehouse workers to form the
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Speaker 3: independent Amazon Labor Union to fight this epic David and
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Speaker 3: Goliath battle against Amazon, the second largest private employer in
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Speaker 3: the United States and Jeff Bezos, the second richest man
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Speaker 3: in the world, and to win and successfully unionized the
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Speaker 3: first Amazon warehouse in the United States. And the book
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Speaker 3: also traces Chris's life story before the Amazon Labor Union
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Speaker 3: and his journey from warehouse worker and labor organizer to
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Speaker 3: becoming this internationally recognized public figure. And you know, a
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Speaker 3: human rights activist who has sailed with humanitarian flotilla missions
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Speaker 3: to Gaza and to Cuba, even facing detainment and harassment
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Speaker 3: from ice and imprisonment and abuse from the Israeli military
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Speaker 3: because of it.
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Speaker 2: I've done a number of events with Chris over the years.
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Speaker 3: I've interviewed him outside of the JFKA warehouse on Staten Island,
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Speaker 3: and I interviewed him as he was sailing to Gaza
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Speaker 3: with the Global Samood Flotilla right before they were captured
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Speaker 3: by the Israeli military last year. I've seen both up
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Speaker 3: close and from afar what he his story and the
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Speaker 3: story of al you mean to working people out there,
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Speaker 3: young and old people across this country and beyond. I've
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Speaker 3: seen up close and from afar how the media's good
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Speaker 3: and awful and obsessive coverage of Chris and ALU, how
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Speaker 3: that's all affected Chris and different members and factions within ALU.
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Speaker 3: And I've watched them all try to do their best
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Speaker 3: to now vigate a situation and a spotlight that I
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Speaker 3: don't think any of them ever expected to be in,
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Speaker 3: and that most of us will frankly never be able
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Speaker 3: to fully understand.
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Speaker 2: From the outside.
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Speaker 3: I've seen and learned about many of the struggles that
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Speaker 3: Chris has been through. I've seen and learned about the
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Speaker 3: things that he's done to help others. I've seen and
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Speaker 3: learned about mistakes that he's made and regretful things that
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Speaker 3: he's done and said. I know he's a controversial figure
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Speaker 3: to different people for different reasons, and I know that
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Speaker 3: he's an inspiration to different people for different reasons. I
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Speaker 3: know that he's a complex and imperfect person like you,
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Speaker 3: like me, and like the hundreds and hundreds of working
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Speaker 3: people that I've interviewed on this show over the years.
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Speaker 3: And I've said from the beginning of this show that
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Speaker 3: the whole point of this project was to honor the
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Speaker 3: full and beautiful and complex humanity of our fellow workers,
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Speaker 3: to lift up the unheard voices of working class people,
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Speaker 3: and to help them and us and others see ourselves
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Speaker 3: as full people with important lives and stories, not just stereotypes,
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Speaker 3: not just name tags and job titles. We're so much
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Speaker 3: more than that. And as a fellow worker, Chris is
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Speaker 3: no different, And whatever your thoughts are about him, I
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Speaker 3: think we all need to remember that, because I see
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Speaker 3: a lot of people forgetting that. And that is not
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Speaker 3: to excuse or downplay any concerns that folks have about
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Speaker 3: Chris Alu or the complicated relationship between media, celebrity and
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Speaker 3: political movements today. And of course no one is above critique,
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Speaker 3: not public figures like Chris, and certainly not journalists like me.
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Speaker 3: And anyone who is part of the labor movement must
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Speaker 3: hold themselves and be he accountable.
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Speaker 2: To that movement.
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Speaker 3: I know that, and I believe that, But I also
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Speaker 3: know that movements don't move and history doesn't happen without people,
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Speaker 3: and people are complicated, and if we don't have a
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Speaker 3: healthy way as working people of talking and listening to
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Speaker 3: each other and working through our shit. If the world
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Speaker 3: is burning all around us and we cannot find ways
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Speaker 3: to work together or work alongside each other for our
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Speaker 3: common goals and common good even if we don't like
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Speaker 3: each other, then to put it bluntly, we're cooked. And
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Speaker 3: so with all that said, you know, it was in
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Speaker 3: that full spirit and with that same mission that I've
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Speaker 3: had since I started this podcast eight years ago, that
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Speaker 3: I sat down with Chris Small's for this important conversation
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Speaker 3: that we had at Red Amazon Baltimore. I hope you
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Speaker 3: guys enjoy it, and I want to know what you think,
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Speaker 3: but please first take a listen. All right, Well, thank
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Speaker 3: you so much to Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and coffeehouse
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Speaker 3: for hosting us for this great event. I want y'all
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Speaker 3: to give a proper Baltimore Welcome to brother Chris Small's,
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Speaker 3: the co founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union,
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Speaker 3: here with us tonight. So we are of course here
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Speaker 3: to talk about Chris's new book, When the Revolution Comes,
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Speaker 3: the Fight for the Future of the Working Class, but
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Speaker 3: we're also going to talk about so much more, and
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Speaker 3: by way of getting us into this discussion, I wanted
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Speaker 3: to just roll the clock back a second. Right, let's
6:52
Speaker 3: go back five years twenty twenty one. All right, feels
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Speaker 3: like forever ago. But let's not forget how crazy of
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Speaker 3: a year that was. Right, we had all just watched
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Speaker 3: the batshit January sixth insurrection. It was still in the
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Speaker 3: middle of COVID, no vaccines yet, and like, out of
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Speaker 3: this you know, dark swamp in time, you know, an
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Speaker 3: unexpected source of light emerged in workers struggles and a
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Speaker 3: sort of revived labor movement. Right, everyone was talking about
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Speaker 3: the Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who were trying to
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Speaker 3: unionize with the retail, wholesale and department store.
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Speaker 2: Union down there. I went down there.
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Speaker 3: That was actually my first field shoot for the Real News,
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Speaker 3: and you know, of course, those workers lost that election,
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Speaker 3: and it was very heartbreaking for a lot of us,
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Speaker 3: and it was really incredible to see that heartbreak turn
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Speaker 3: into the energy that we would see later in the
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Speaker 3: year with the first store, the first Starbucks store to
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Speaker 3: unionize in Buffalo, New York, and the emergent of you know,
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Speaker 3: this rag tag group of badass workers from Staten Island
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Speaker 3: who were trying to unionize their Amazon Warehouse, right, and
8:09
Speaker 3: so you know, like it can be easy to forget
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Speaker 3: all that we were going through in that moment, and
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Speaker 3: so I wanted that to sort of be the start.
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Speaker 3: And Chris, I wanted to ask you to like take
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Speaker 3: us back there, like remind us who Chris Smalls was
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Speaker 3: before COVID and then like you know, like talk us
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Speaker 3: through because I think, you know, we need a refresher,
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Speaker 3: like talk us through the incredible saga from the walkout
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Speaker 3: that you led to you guys winning that first Union election.
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Speaker 2: Yea, And thank you all for being here. It's been
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Speaker 2: a while since I've been to Baltimore's.
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Speaker 4: I'm glad and honored to be back and good company
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Speaker 4: and some good combats, familiar faces.
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Speaker 2: In the crowd.
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Speaker 4: So thank you all once again for showing up and
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Speaker 4: supporting my book and being here tonight.
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Speaker 2: I really appreciate that.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, as you said, we have amnesia in America.
9:02
Speaker 4: We all know that, you know, one thing being a
9:04
Speaker 4: news cycle for a few weeks and then it's always
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Speaker 4: something else, especially under this Trump administration. And ironically, six
9:11
Speaker 4: years ago when I got fired from Amazon, that was
9:14
Speaker 4: also an election year. Trump was still in the headlines. Still,
9:18
Speaker 4: so we wasn't garnishing any attention. As you mentioned, like
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Speaker 4: leading up to twenty twenty one, twenty twenty, COVID was
9:26
Speaker 4: the peak at his peak, especially in New York City
9:30
Speaker 4: being one of the epic centers of the world. Workers were, yeah,
9:35
Speaker 4: workers were afraid, workers were catching COVID. I remember walking
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Speaker 4: into my warehouse and how seeing my comrade at work
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Speaker 4: just really sick and not really themselves. So it's a
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Speaker 4: really airy moment. But for those who don't know, I
9:54
Speaker 4: was an assistant manager at Amazon for four and a
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Speaker 4: half years. I opened up three warehouses in the Tri
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Speaker 4: City area in New Jersey, Connecticut.
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Speaker 2: Staton Isyl of New York was my last building.
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Speaker 4: You know, people's person always, you know, the same way
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Speaker 4: you see me today, It's the same way I went
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Speaker 4: to work at Amazon.
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Speaker 2: Definitely loved my people.
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Speaker 4: I spent seventy hours a week with them. They were
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Speaker 4: like my extended family. And when COVID hit, I definitely
10:20
Speaker 4: was afraid for all of us, and I wanted to
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Speaker 4: speak up on their behalf as.
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Speaker 2: Well, which led to my firing.
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Speaker 4: After I let the walkout on March thirty of twenty twenty,
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Speaker 4: which once again was six years ago. Seems like it
10:33
Speaker 4: was a long time ago, but it was, you know,
10:36
Speaker 4: six years ago.
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Speaker 2: It flew, it flew past. But you know, just giving
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Speaker 2: me a background by myself.
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Speaker 4: What you're going to read about in the book, if
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Speaker 4: you haven't already, it's that you know, I'm just like
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Speaker 4: anybody else in this crowd. You know, I'm a single parent.
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Speaker 4: My twins at the time was well, damn, they were
10:59
Speaker 4: maybe eight or nine years old. And yeah, you can
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Speaker 4: imagine how much time that I've lost spending with them
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Speaker 4: over the last years, especially during COVID. The years of COVID,
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Speaker 4: it was if I was lucky to see them half
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Speaker 4: a year. You know, that was the thing as well.
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Speaker 4: And you know I love sports. Grew up playing basketball, football, track.
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Speaker 4: If you're gonna see that in the book. I also
11:25
Speaker 4: was a rapper.
11:26
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, don't bury the lead. There's a
11:28
Speaker 2: little juicy like story about your rap history.
11:30
Speaker 4: Land Yeah, yeah, I know, there's a little rap stink
11:33
Speaker 4: that I had briefly after college. Dropped out of college,
11:39
Speaker 4: I wanted to pursue music. I thought I was going
11:40
Speaker 4: to blow up overnight, and then I got hip of reality.
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Speaker 4: Getting back into the workforce. I got married in the
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Speaker 4: Wars at a young age, but I was married for
11:51
Speaker 4: eight years, you know, and during that hardship, working at
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Speaker 4: Amazon was our main source of income from my household,
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Speaker 4: one of them at least, and having healthcare as well,
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Speaker 4: you know, healthcare Amazon provided for me and my kids
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Speaker 4: and my wife at the time.
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Speaker 2: So when I lost all of.
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Speaker 4: That during the pandemic, it really showed me how much
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Speaker 4: the company didn't really care about anybody. After I poured
12:16
Speaker 4: five years of my blood, sweat and tears into the company,
12:19
Speaker 4: after I've done so much opening up these warehouses for them,
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Speaker 4: training thousands of Amazon workers, hundreds of their upper management,
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Speaker 4: the company just say, you know what, we don't care.
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Speaker 2: We're going to fire you.
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Speaker 4: And not only fire you, they did it in a
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Speaker 4: way that martyred me by Jeff Bezels, who was the
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Speaker 4: richest man in the world, signing off on a smear
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Speaker 4: campaign which basically said to make me the face of
12:43
Speaker 4: the the whole union ode and efforts against Amazon, which
12:48
Speaker 4: is a good idea, but at the same time, the
12:53
Speaker 4: racist part in the beginning saying that I'm not smart
12:56
Speaker 4: or articulate, something that they use in these corporates weddings
13:01
Speaker 4: to put up on black people and brown people saying
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Speaker 4: that we're not smart enough or we're not articulate enough
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Speaker 4: to even talk about anything when it comes to work
13:09
Speaker 4: related issues. So that was really the catalyst of a
13:14
Speaker 4: moment right there where I embraced it and I said,
13:16
Speaker 4: you know what, even though I no longer work for
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Speaker 4: the company, I'm going to continue fighting for the workers
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Speaker 4: inside the building. Ultimately, for a whole year from twenty
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Speaker 4: twenty to twenty twenty one, we traveled the country protesting
13:29
Speaker 4: in front of jet base was mantons and penthouses while Bessemer,
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Speaker 4: Alabama was trying their efforts, and we all was paying
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Speaker 4: attention my folks in stat naand we were paying attention,
13:39
Speaker 4: but we took it a step further.
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Speaker 2: We did drive down there.
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Speaker 4: We drove sixteen hours from New York City down the
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Speaker 4: Bessemer in the car, one car, Sporsch stuff, and we
13:49
Speaker 4: stayed about a week connected with workers there, connected with
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Speaker 4: the union, trying to figure it out because we didn't
13:55
Speaker 4: know what we wanted to do. We wanted to do something,
13:57
Speaker 4: but we didn't really have all the answers. But unfortunately, yes,
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Speaker 4: like Max said, when when they lost, it was doubly
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Speaker 4: devastating for everybody. You know, we felt that because of
14:10
Speaker 4: several reasons. Number one, that Building Investment Alabama has about
14:14
Speaker 4: six thousand employees, five six thousand employees, majority of them
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Speaker 4: are black people. Eighty five percent of the building is black,
14:22
Speaker 4: eighty percent of the workforce they are black women. So
14:25
Speaker 4: when Amazon spent millions of dollars stopping that campaign, that
14:29
Speaker 4: was a direct attack on black and brown people. And
14:32
Speaker 4: that's something that we resonated with in Staten Island, New York,
14:35
Speaker 4: where the demographics are similar to our building as well.
14:39
Speaker 4: So the next day after the results came out, it
14:43
Speaker 4: just so happened to be our birthday for twenty twenty
14:49
Speaker 4: one is when we started our campaign the next day
14:51
Speaker 4: after those results came out.
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Speaker 2: We didn't even wait. And yeah, you know.
14:57
Speaker 4: That year was like a blur as well, but it
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Speaker 4: was a eleven months over three hundred plus days. I
15:03
Speaker 4: set up an encampment outside of the building that fired
15:06
Speaker 4: me at a public bus stop talking to workers every
15:10
Speaker 4: single day, rainshine how to cold night or day about
15:14
Speaker 4: why we need to start a union. And you know,
15:17
Speaker 4: originally we sent down an olive branch to the established unions.
15:21
Speaker 4: We wanted some support, we wanted some you know, resources,
15:25
Speaker 4: some help, but we got nothing in return because a
15:29
Speaker 4: lot of people didn't believe in us. A lot of
15:30
Speaker 4: people thought that it wasn't going to work. You know,
15:33
Speaker 4: who are you guys to unionize when y'all don't have
15:36
Speaker 4: any resources, y'all don't have any knowledge, experience, et cetera.
15:41
Speaker 4: But one thing we didn't know is that we're Amazon workers,
15:45
Speaker 4: whether we're fired or not, we know the ends and
15:48
Speaker 4: out of the company better than Jeff Bezils. So we
15:51
Speaker 4: felt that was the only way and I still believe
15:53
Speaker 4: that till this day, that the only way it could
15:55
Speaker 4: have been done was grassroots, guerrilla style tactics in the
16:01
Speaker 4: trenches every day, media workers, face to face.
16:06
Speaker 2: That was the only way it was going to work.
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Speaker 4: We couldn't take the shortcut routes, We couldn't do the
16:11
Speaker 4: traditional style organizing methods that most unions use.
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Speaker 2: We had to think outside of that box. And also sacrifice.
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Speaker 4: Sacrifice was one of the things that we all had
16:24
Speaker 4: to do as a collective.
16:26
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was successful.
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Speaker 4: You know, eleven months, hard, sweat and tears into the
16:33
Speaker 4: campaign and it paid though to become.
16:36
Speaker 2: The first union in American history for Amazon workers.
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Speaker 4: And still till this day, that building is the only
16:43
Speaker 4: unionized building in this country.
16:45
Speaker 2: And that's what people got to understand, and it's pro
16:48
Speaker 2: and con to that.
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Speaker 4: Yes, it's great that we still are standing, but it
16:52
Speaker 4: shouldn't take four years for us to have a contract.
16:58
Speaker 4: Keep that in mind that, you know, even when I
17:00
Speaker 4: was a president for three years, the first thing we
17:04
Speaker 4: did when we won was demand the bargainer order from Amazon,
17:08
Speaker 4: or at least from the National Labor Relation Board, so
17:10
Speaker 4: that we can negotiate with Amazon. We didn't hear anything
17:13
Speaker 4: under the Biden administration. I don't know what happened, but
17:18
Speaker 4: there was some magic in the air. We got a
17:20
Speaker 4: bargainer order in April of this year, but Amazon has
17:25
Speaker 4: already appealed it because they've been spending millions of dollars
17:30
Speaker 4: holding things up for the last four years. So for
17:33
Speaker 4: those and everybody who's been questioning, like, why don't you
17:36
Speaker 4: guys have a contract? Are you guys are not getting
17:38
Speaker 4: a contract? It's not because of us. It's literally because
17:42
Speaker 4: the system is broken. The system is not worker friendly.
17:46
Speaker 4: As much as these progressives and politicists say that the
17:50
Speaker 4: system usher us to the system that supposed to work
17:55
Speaker 4: for us. It doesn't. It's not in our favor. So
17:58
Speaker 4: we have to continue to fight every step of the way.
18:01
Speaker 4: And actually when we won in twenty twenty one, that
18:04
Speaker 4: was just the beginning of the fight.
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Speaker 2: This fight is a lifetime struggle.
18:09
Speaker 4: And now the only thing that I can see that
18:12
Speaker 4: our unions can do, and not just our union, because
18:14
Speaker 4: there's other unions out.
18:15
Speaker 2: Here, Starbucks workers, all.
18:17
Speaker 4: These other unions that emerge, they're still fighting for contracts
18:21
Speaker 4: too and negotiating their way through it.
18:24
Speaker 2: But the only thing I could see that will work
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Speaker 2: for all.
18:26
Speaker 4: Of us is if we withhold our strongest weapon, which
18:30
Speaker 4: is our labor, and go on strike.
18:37
Speaker 3: And you know, it's like it was wild too, you know,
18:41
Speaker 3: reporting on Bessemer and then reporting on you guys and
18:45
Speaker 3: sort of seeing how the things that worked for Amazon
18:48
Speaker 3: Investmer weren't working on Staten Island and like that. I
18:53
Speaker 3: think that was like a real like sort of moment
18:56
Speaker 3: of insurgent energy because Investmer, when the workers brought in
19:01
Speaker 3: the RWDSU, Amazon did what, you know, union busting employers
19:05
Speaker 3: always do it. They're like, oh, you know, this is
19:07
Speaker 3: an outside force that's trying to come in and you know,
19:11
Speaker 3: get in between our relationship. They couldn't do that with
19:14
Speaker 3: you guys because it was like, no, these are literally
19:16
Speaker 3: just the workers in the warehouse, right, And so like
19:19
Speaker 3: I wanted to kind of like touch on that because
19:22
Speaker 3: it was such a big debate at the time, like
19:26
Speaker 3: you know, because of Bessemer and Alu especially, but everyone
19:30
Speaker 3: was you know, talking about like is it better to
19:33
Speaker 3: go the independent route like Amazon Labor Union, Trader Joe's United,
19:38
Speaker 3: you know, the home depot workers who tried to unionize
19:41
Speaker 3: in Philly, or is it better to go with an
19:43
Speaker 3: established union like the teamsters of the RWDSU. And so
19:48
Speaker 3: like with you know five again, like you said, like
19:51
Speaker 3: five four years like of experience since we were having
19:54
Speaker 3: those debates, I think it's important for us to sort
19:57
Speaker 3: of revisit and update that and like you know, you
20:00
Speaker 3: know better than us. So like I wanted to ask, like,
20:03
Speaker 3: after all that you've been through in this struggle, like
20:06
Speaker 3: where have you landed on the independent or you know,
20:10
Speaker 3: established union debate, especially in light of the ALU affiliating
20:14
Speaker 3: with the team Stert.
20:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I still stick by my original
20:20
Speaker 4: sentiment that there was no other way that we were
20:23
Speaker 4: going to get it done, not with any established union.
20:26
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter how long they've been around, how powerful
20:29
Speaker 4: they are. The way we organize is completely against any.
20:33
Speaker 2: Type of style.
20:34
Speaker 4: You can't read about it because it hasn't been done before.
20:37
Speaker 4: And yeah, I still believe that independent unions are something
20:44
Speaker 4: that we still need to push, not saying that established
20:49
Speaker 4: unions can't support, but what's happening over the last few years.
20:55
Speaker 4: And be honest, after we won in twenty twenty one, well,
21:00
Speaker 4: let me take it to the day of the day
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Speaker 4: we beat Amazon.
21:04
Speaker 2: We had two dollars and fifty cent in our account.
21:08
Speaker 4: Now, you know, it's funny because we were broke as
21:11
Speaker 4: hell people.
21:13
Speaker 2: We didn't have dues paying members. We still don't have
21:15
Speaker 2: dues paying members.
21:17
Speaker 4: We don't have a contract, so I can't ask for
21:19
Speaker 4: workers who are making, you know, twenty dollars an hour
21:22
Speaker 4: to pay union dues.
21:23
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to do that as a union president.
21:26
Speaker 4: The next day we had almost half a million dollars
21:30
Speaker 4: because the bandwagon came the unions. Oh yeah we supported,
21:34
Speaker 4: oh yeah, but they really really didn't. Actually, there was
21:38
Speaker 4: a reporting that all the established unions combined only contributed
21:45
Speaker 4: after we all won to about Starbucks, Traded, Joe, Amazon,
21:48
Speaker 4: you name it. They only contributed three percent of their
21:53
Speaker 4: resources into these campaigns. And I can tell you we
21:57
Speaker 4: didn't get one of those three percents. We got zero. Literally,
22:01
Speaker 4: nobody offered us anything before we won. And after we won,
22:08
Speaker 4: the bandwagon came and everybody said, oh, yeah, we had
22:11
Speaker 4: some resurgence in the labor movement, which is great.
22:13
Speaker 2: It was.
22:14
Speaker 4: There was definitely headlines, it was definitely international news and
22:19
Speaker 4: resonated with millions of workers around the world. The problem
22:22
Speaker 4: is that established unions didn't use that opportunity to double
22:27
Speaker 4: down and really invest into grassroots movements because there was
22:31
Speaker 4: embarrassed We weren't the first people who tried to unionize Amazon.
22:36
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
22:37
Speaker 4: Actually, established unions have been trying to unionize Amazon for
22:40
Speaker 4: over a decade, even before Best in my Alabama And
22:44
Speaker 4: guess what, you guys never heard about it.
22:46
Speaker 2: I never heard about it.
22:47
Speaker 4: It was actually a campaign at jfkaight while I was
22:51
Speaker 4: working there. Didn't even hear about it until we started.
22:55
Speaker 4: And that was ran by the established union of the Teamsters.
22:59
Speaker 4: So when it comes to which side do I really
23:04
Speaker 4: ride with. I'm going to say the one that works,
23:07
Speaker 4: And I know that there's pros and cons to everything.
23:12
Speaker 4: The thing is about independent unions and grassroots efforts. As
23:15
Speaker 4: we know, we all know your grassroots. It's a struggle.
23:19
Speaker 4: You're gonna you're not gonna have all the tools and
23:22
Speaker 4: resources given to you all the time. You gotta scrap,
23:25
Speaker 4: you gotta sacrifice, you gotta crowdfund, you gotta have mutual aid.
23:30
Speaker 2: We literally had to gofund me, which.
23:32
Speaker 4: I you know, it's it's sad to say, but that
23:37
Speaker 4: that was our only lifeline of how we were able
23:40
Speaker 4: to feed our comrades and our workers.
23:42
Speaker 2: There So.
23:46
Speaker 4: The reason why we had to affiliate with the Teamsters,
23:49
Speaker 4: which I signed, by the way, it's because we're going
23:53
Speaker 4: up against a two point two trillion dollar company like
23:56
Speaker 4: Amazon that has all the money to hold thing in
24:00
Speaker 4: federal court for four or five years like they haven't,
24:04
Speaker 4: which you guys are not privy to this all the time,
24:07
Speaker 4: but Amazon has million dollar lawyers, And while I was
24:11
Speaker 4: the president, I've been to court federal court against Amazon.
24:16
Speaker 2: I lost count how many times over the years.
24:19
Speaker 4: And all they do every time we do something, they
24:22
Speaker 4: appeal it into a federal court to try to get
24:24
Speaker 4: into a right wing supreme court and try to get
24:28
Speaker 4: us decertified. That is their game plan. They're not trying
24:31
Speaker 4: to come to the table. They still don't even want
24:33
Speaker 4: to recognize that we won. So the affiliation with the
24:39
Speaker 4: Teamsters was so that my union doesn't go bankrupt, because
24:45
Speaker 4: if we don't have dudes, fand members and people are
24:48
Speaker 4: not going to continuously donate, we have to get resources
24:53
Speaker 4: to stay alive or stay afloat. The team Sters was
24:57
Speaker 4: going to offer that. The affiliation agreement that I signed
25:00
Speaker 4: was something that I and my executive board negotiated along
25:03
Speaker 4: with our legal counsel, and it was one that we
25:06
Speaker 4: benefited from the most. We have full autonomy with our
25:10
Speaker 4: local alu IBT Local one, full autonomy, full jurisdiction on Amazon.
25:18
Speaker 2: And the most.
25:18
Speaker 4: Important thing that I got in that contract was they
25:22
Speaker 4: have striketh benefits. They can offer the workers at JMKA
25:25
Speaker 4: right now a thousand dollars a.
25:28
Speaker 2: Week to go on strike if they wanted to.
25:31
Speaker 4: Right, I'm not the president anymore, but this is something
25:38
Speaker 4: that I set up to help them succeed in that journey.
25:44
Speaker 2: It's up to the workers. It's up to the current
25:46
Speaker 2: leadership of the union.
25:47
Speaker 4: It's up to them to take that initiative and utilize it,
25:52
Speaker 4: and hopefully they do because the clock is ticking, you
25:55
Speaker 4: know right now, since we've been issued a bargainer order.
25:57
Speaker 2: Amazon has already.
25:59
Speaker 4: Appealed it, but the clock is ticking for them to
26:01
Speaker 4: come to the table.
26:02
Speaker 2: They have about a year to.
26:03
Speaker 4: Do so otherwise, the game plan that Amazon is going
26:07
Speaker 4: to run is going to try to decertify the union.
26:11
Speaker 4: So hopefully they get their stuff together and they.
26:14
Speaker 2: Get it done.
26:14
Speaker 4: I'm always going to support my union, whether I have
26:17
Speaker 4: a position or not, and that's what we all have
26:20
Speaker 4: to do in solidarity. We all have a role to
26:23
Speaker 4: play because our fight is absolutely your fight. A lot
26:27
Speaker 4: of people don't know what's going on behind the scenes,
26:29
Speaker 4: and Amazon are within these campaigns. So the reason why
26:36
Speaker 4: we're here today, the reason why you guys are picking
26:39
Speaker 4: up this book, is because this book is also.
26:42
Speaker 2: Not just a memoir, but it's also a how too.
26:46
Speaker 4: It's going to give you some tools on how we
26:49
Speaker 4: can all fight back against the system that's oppressing us.
26:54
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, so, like I really want to talk before
27:02
Speaker 3: we get to Q and A right about like your
27:04
Speaker 3: your life, your work, your mission, you know, beyond ail
27:08
Speaker 3: you and you know, the last time we did an interview,
27:12
Speaker 3: you were sailing to Gaza for Christ's sake, right, So
27:14
Speaker 3: I want us to get there, but before we do,
27:17
Speaker 3: just to pick up on what you were saying there, Like,
27:19
Speaker 3: I think it's really important for us to, you know,
27:23
Speaker 3: in this space model a real honest, you know, nobs
27:27
Speaker 3: discussion about you know, like what we can learn from
27:31
Speaker 3: the beautiful, complicated, heartbreaking, inspiring story of the first Amazon union,
27:39
Speaker 3: right because like so many struggles before you, and there're
27:44
Speaker 3: gonna be plenty after you. You know, you guys faced
27:47
Speaker 3: a lot of external pressure and internal you know, debates, division,
27:53
Speaker 3: you know, this stuff happens, right and like you write
27:56
Speaker 3: about some of that in the book, and you know
27:58
Speaker 3: there's a time and place to talk about that stuff.
28:02
Speaker 3: And it's not here, right, We're not here to sort
28:04
Speaker 3: of air dirty laundry and point fingers. Like everyone knows
28:07
Speaker 3: Chris isn't perfect. I'm not perfect, You're not perfect. We
28:10
Speaker 3: And that's I think the point, right, is that whether
28:13
Speaker 3: you're organizing your shop or trying to build a political movement,
28:16
Speaker 3: you can't do anything without the messy realities of messy
28:20
Speaker 3: human beings who make the movement right, So our humanity
28:24
Speaker 3: is always part of the story and none of us
28:27
Speaker 3: is perfect. And so I wanted to ask you, Chris,
28:30
Speaker 3: like again, like not for us to get sucked into
28:33
Speaker 3: the you know he said, who he said?
28:35
Speaker 2: She said?
28:37
Speaker 3: You know, like I've talked to other Amazon members who
28:39
Speaker 3: have different versions of the story, and I always tell then,
28:42
Speaker 3: like I told you, I was like, it's not my
28:43
Speaker 3: place to pick sides here. I'm not in this union, right,
28:46
Speaker 3: I'm a fucking journalist, right, And I it breaks my
28:49
Speaker 3: heart when I see these divisions because I just I
28:51
Speaker 3: want the best for everybody, But you know, life doesn't
28:55
Speaker 3: work out like the fairy tales in our heads. So
28:58
Speaker 3: what can we learn from y'all's experience that can like
29:02
Speaker 3: help others out there who are going through these struggles.
29:05
Speaker 3: And it's getting tough, and you know, the company, the
29:08
Speaker 3: employers appealing every victory. It's like one step forward, three
29:12
Speaker 3: steps back. You're losing friendships because you know, shit just
29:15
Speaker 3: gets really tough. You have no money, Like, what can
29:18
Speaker 3: folks out there who are experiencing that learn from what
29:21
Speaker 3: y'all went through?
29:22
Speaker 2: And ail you. Yeah, yeah, a great question.
29:24
Speaker 4: I mean no, once again, when you're taking on one
29:30
Speaker 4: of the most powerful companies in the world, you're trying
29:34
Speaker 4: to bring people together from all different backgrounds.
29:37
Speaker 2: All different creeds.
29:40
Speaker 4: You're going to have disagreements, They're going to have different
29:42
Speaker 4: political ideologies.
29:45
Speaker 2: You're going to have in fighting every.
29:48
Speaker 4: Union, every organization does you know, we just were under
29:52
Speaker 4: a microscope because of our historical victory and the mistake
29:59
Speaker 4: that the media I saw that dead was comparing us
30:03
Speaker 4: to established unions that's been around for like one hundred years.
30:08
Speaker 4: We weren't that. We're grass roots organizers. Most of them
30:13
Speaker 4: weren't even organizers. They were just everyday civilians that were inspired,
30:18
Speaker 4: that were passionate, that wanted to do something.
30:22
Speaker 2: And even myself as the leader at.
30:25
Speaker 4: The time, I didn't have all the answers as well.
30:29
Speaker 2: I had to learn and I'm still learning every day.
30:31
Speaker 2: I'm a sponge.
30:31
Speaker 4: I'm learning new you know, what's going on overseas is
30:34
Speaker 4: affecting us here. The things that I'm doing with Palestine
30:38
Speaker 4: or Cuba or wherever I'm going, it affects us here.
30:43
Speaker 4: I'll try to connect those dots. Some people just can't
30:47
Speaker 4: think that big, and unfortunately it leads to disagreements. But
30:52
Speaker 4: the disagreements are that's a democracy. That's exactly what the
30:56
Speaker 4: democracy is. And you know, unfortunately, like the movement has.
31:02
Speaker 2: Its way of weaning people out. It's not for everybody.
31:05
Speaker 2: It's just it's just real.
31:06
Speaker 4: A lot of people will see social media posts or
31:10
Speaker 4: see something happening, protests, whatever it is, even going back
31:14
Speaker 4: to George Floyd days when there was millions of people
31:16
Speaker 4: taking to the streets in America. But where are these
31:18
Speaker 4: millions of people now? They're back at work.
31:21
Speaker 2: So a lot of people see things for the.
31:23
Speaker 4: Moment, they get involved, and then they get burnt out,
31:27
Speaker 4: they get they get weeded out, or they realize this
31:31
Speaker 4: is too tough for me. And that's a that's a
31:34
Speaker 4: lot of it is what happened to our union.
31:37
Speaker 2: A lot of folks thought that it's a lot easier
31:40
Speaker 2: than what it is.
31:42
Speaker 4: Yes, I do make things look cool sometimes that's that's intentional,
31:46
Speaker 4: you know, because organizing is stressful as shit. I know,
31:49
Speaker 4: we all know that organizing hard, stressful, tiring, exhausting, all
31:54
Speaker 4: of the above.
31:56
Speaker 2: And I tried to make.
31:57
Speaker 4: It as simple, as cool, as fun as possible because
32:02
Speaker 4: I know what workers are dealing with working that Amazon.
32:06
Speaker 4: That was one of my biggest things is making sure
32:09
Speaker 4: that everybody around me was always good in some capacity. Unfortunately,
32:15
Speaker 4: once again, the movement is going to be the movement.
32:18
Speaker 4: And you know, for those who jump into this movement
32:23
Speaker 4: or this type of work or any type of work,
32:26
Speaker 4: you got to know what you signed yourself up for.
32:28
Speaker 2: This is a lifetime struggle.
32:30
Speaker 4: Our ancestors paved the way, and not only that lost
32:34
Speaker 4: their lives. Some are incarcerated, incarcerated right now as we speak,
32:40
Speaker 4: so that we can have the right to organize, that
32:43
Speaker 4: we can have a reason to organize. So when these
32:47
Speaker 4: type of movements, you can't have one foot in, one
32:49
Speaker 4: foot out. You got to be fully committed for the
32:52
Speaker 4: law haul and you got to be fully committed to
32:55
Speaker 4: sacrificing something because if you spoke out about Palestine, you
32:59
Speaker 4: lost I know I did. If you spoke out at
33:03
Speaker 4: your workplace, you're gonna be targeted, if not worse, they're
33:07
Speaker 4: wanna get terminated. If you speak out against all of
33:10
Speaker 4: the injustees that we're seeing right now in this country,
33:13
Speaker 4: you're gonna lose friends, They're gonna lose loved ones, I
33:17
Speaker 4: know a lot of us in here that probably when
33:20
Speaker 4: they started talking about October seven. It was tough conversations
33:25
Speaker 4: in the beginning, because I can tell you I lost
33:27
Speaker 4: ten thousand followers on Instagram instantly when I posted about
33:31
Speaker 4: Palestine over three years ago. And it was the same
33:35
Speaker 4: people that said in my DMS, Chris, we supported you
33:39
Speaker 4: for Amazon workers.
33:41
Speaker 2: But this is where I draw the line. What in return?
33:47
Speaker 2: You know what I said, fuck you, because if you.
33:53
Speaker 4: Can't make the relationship between Amazon and genocide, then I
33:58
Speaker 4: can't help you. And I don't give a damn if
34:01
Speaker 4: you one of my organizers or not. If you're fighting
34:05
Speaker 4: over some petty shit. When Jeff Bezos is flying in
34:08
Speaker 4: space on the Penis rocket, you missing the plot. So
34:13
Speaker 4: people want to attack the wrong things, and that happens
34:16
Speaker 4: a lot on the left. We're talking about the character,
34:21
Speaker 4: the person, the individual.
34:24
Speaker 2: How I look, how I talk, where I'm going, what
34:27
Speaker 2: headlines I'm gathering.
34:29
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, Amazon is firing thirty thousand people next week, And
34:34
Speaker 4: that was what I always tell about organizers, like we're
34:37
Speaker 4: fighting about you know what we're doing next? When Amazon
34:42
Speaker 4: is winning, they are in the building union busting and
34:47
Speaker 4: y'all worried about the wrong things. So for me, the
34:52
Speaker 4: biggest lesson I learned is you got to stay true
34:55
Speaker 4: to the mission.
34:57
Speaker 2: And I don't debate to much.
35:00
Speaker 4: I mean, I do sometimes because I have to defend
35:03
Speaker 4: myself in certain cases, but I've never I've never played
35:08
Speaker 4: into the then they say about myself about my union,
35:14
Speaker 4: because I let the work speak for itself.
35:17
Speaker 2: We made history, unprecedented history.
35:21
Speaker 4: And people that were there, they know that's all I
35:25
Speaker 4: care about my day. Ones that walked out of the
35:27
Speaker 4: buildings six years ago with me, they know. Everybody else
35:32
Speaker 4: that came afterwards, that's gonna jump on board later on,
35:36
Speaker 4: that's going to look back reflect back that none of
35:40
Speaker 4: that matters. What matters is what are you willing to
35:43
Speaker 4: do to get Amazon to come to the table, What
35:46
Speaker 4: are you willing to do to liberate the people of Palestine?
35:50
Speaker 4: And more importantly, if you don't get up and do
35:53
Speaker 4: the work, who's going to do it? Because there's no
35:56
Speaker 4: cavalry coming for us.
36:02
Speaker 3: One of the things that has sort of always colored
36:06
Speaker 3: the way that I have watched your you know, journey,
36:13
Speaker 3: is like the fact that I always think that I
36:15
Speaker 3: was working in warehouses back in southern California fifteen years
36:18
Speaker 3: ago in the depths of the Great Recession, Like our
36:21
Speaker 3: family was losing our house like millions of others.
36:23
Speaker 2: Like it was awful. And like.
36:27
Speaker 3: The thought of one of us having the you know,
36:32
Speaker 3: cultural international statue that you do, that one of us
36:36
Speaker 3: would be giving so much hope to people around the
36:38
Speaker 3: country and around the world is just mind boggling to me.
36:42
Speaker 3: But it's also like that's got to be a lot
36:45
Speaker 3: to go through as a working warehouse guy to then
36:50
Speaker 3: kind of be catapulted to that. So like that's not
36:52
Speaker 3: to excuse anything, it's just like to be like, we
36:56
Speaker 3: should give each other as much grace as we possibly
36:58
Speaker 3: can while holding ourselves accountable to each other, do our
37:02
Speaker 3: best right. That's the best that we can do for
37:04
Speaker 3: each other. And I say that to say, like, by
37:08
Speaker 3: by getting us to your activism beyond the warehouse right,
37:11
Speaker 3: because what is it about your story, Alu, story that
37:18
Speaker 3: that has spoken to so many people around the world,
37:21
Speaker 3: and like, and how did that lead you to you know,
37:25
Speaker 3: becoming a you know, global activist for human rights from
37:29
Speaker 3: gods to Cuba?
37:30
Speaker 4: A great question, I mean, well, number one, if you
37:33
Speaker 4: would have told me that I could look as cool
37:35
Speaker 4: as a rapper.
37:35
Speaker 2: As a union organizer, I'd have been doing this shit
37:38
Speaker 2: a long time.
37:41
Speaker 3: Years.
37:45
Speaker 4: I don't look like your typical union president. My union
37:50
Speaker 4: doesn't look like your typical union. My executive board didn't
37:53
Speaker 4: look like your typical union executive board. So culturally we
37:59
Speaker 4: gravitated to the younger generation. They looked at us and said,
38:03
Speaker 4: oh wow, they look cool. You know, Amazon, maybe Union.
38:07
Speaker 4: Oh man, they're wearing sweats and T shirts and hat
38:10
Speaker 4: backwards and whatever else. And you know, we did something
38:16
Speaker 4: at a time where once again the world was watching,
38:19
Speaker 4: and we captivated that moment in time. But the international
38:25
Speaker 4: piece came when I got a passport. Because I just
38:28
Speaker 4: got a passport. When I became the president three four
38:31
Speaker 4: years ago, I didn't even have a passport, and seventy
38:34
Speaker 4: percent of Americans don't have a passport. So I encourage you,
38:39
Speaker 4: number one, get one. Because since I got a passport,
38:42
Speaker 4: I've been to forty five different countries around the world
38:45
Speaker 4: and counting. And when I go to these countries, I'm
38:49
Speaker 4: not on vacation. I'm not on tourist trips sort of
38:53
Speaker 4: because I need to learn some things, I need to
38:55
Speaker 4: see some things, but I'm meeting with Amazon workers. And
38:59
Speaker 4: I'll get you the best example that I have as
39:02
Speaker 4: far as how much dedication of how dedicated I am
39:06
Speaker 4: to the movement.
39:08
Speaker 2: I was invited two years ago.
39:13
Speaker 4: When I was the president still, I was invited to
39:16
Speaker 4: Paris by Pharrell and Rihanna to walk into Louis Vatan
39:22
Speaker 4: Runway for this grand opening.
39:25
Speaker 2: And the same day.
39:27
Speaker 4: I was invited to the White House again for the
39:30
Speaker 4: second time from Kamala Harris while she was running for president.
39:35
Speaker 4: I declined both of those and went to an Amazon warehouse.
39:40
Speaker 2: In Canada literally, and.
39:46
Speaker 4: Guess what, I'm proud to say that that Amazon warehouse
39:49
Speaker 4: in Canada is the first unionized building in Canada's history.
39:57
Speaker 2: So once again people could say what they want about me.
40:01
Speaker 4: I know how I move, I know I'm very conscious
40:05
Speaker 4: about what's going on, what's being out there, was put
40:08
Speaker 4: out there, and those around me, once again, they know
40:12
Speaker 4: if you've met me in the past, if you've been
40:14
Speaker 4: around me, if you hung around, what you see is
40:17
Speaker 4: what you get. You know, I don't really.
40:21
Speaker 2: Have to put on other side.
40:23
Speaker 4: And I think that that's what really resonates with people,
40:28
Speaker 4: is that they can relate to me and that they
40:31
Speaker 4: feel comfortable talking and actually.
40:34
Speaker 2: Working alongside or working with me in some way.
40:37
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, the international piece, the international
40:43
Speaker 4: solidarity that I've shown, it's also shown other people that
40:47
Speaker 4: what's happening abroad is coming back home to roosts, especially
40:51
Speaker 4: when it comes to Palestine.
40:53
Speaker 2: There was several reasons why I got on that floor, Tilla.
40:56
Speaker 2: Number one, I'm an Amazon worker.
40:58
Speaker 4: Sure, Amazon has invested seven point two billion dollars in
41:03
Speaker 4: surpriject numbers. The technology that's being used to target and
41:07
Speaker 4: sabel and kill innocent Palestinians is powered by Amazon Web.
41:12
Speaker 2: Services number one.
41:13
Speaker 4: Number two, I'm a black man and I have kids.
41:19
Speaker 4: I don't want my kids to grow up in a
41:21
Speaker 4: world where we're watching scrolling every.
41:24
Speaker 2: Day seeing dead people.
41:26
Speaker 4: I don't know about you guys, but that shit is enough,
41:30
Speaker 4: you know, traumatizing. And number three, I'm a tax paying citizen,
41:37
Speaker 4: American tax paying citizen. Like all of us, we all
41:40
Speaker 4: should be outraged where our tax paying dollars are going.
41:44
Speaker 4: And I can tell you what I saw in Gaza,
41:48
Speaker 4: it's just no comparison. Less than one hundred miles away
41:53
Speaker 4: from Gaza, Stript I'll never forget before we got well
41:57
Speaker 4: we were already intercepted. But I will never forgive me
42:03
Speaker 4: crying on the ship because I was so angry that
42:08
Speaker 4: we didn't make it, But just knowing that we were
42:13
Speaker 4: so close, sixty miles away from God's the Strip, our
42:18
Speaker 4: boat got swarmed with flies, and I'll never forget. I
42:23
Speaker 4: asked one of one of my comrades, like, why where
42:28
Speaker 4: the hell did all these flies come from? And it's
42:32
Speaker 4: because there was so much death and so much you know,
42:38
Speaker 4: bodies under rubble, vermin, whatever you want.
42:43
Speaker 2: To call it.
42:45
Speaker 4: That the flies flew one hundred miles away from land
42:49
Speaker 4: to find food from our garbage and we were swarm
42:53
Speaker 4: And I said, this is whatever we're seeing on Instagram.
42:57
Speaker 2: It's actually just a glimpse. It's not even close to
43:01
Speaker 2: how bad it is over there. And I hear.
43:03
Speaker 4: Testimonies from doctors all the time. It's beyond what I could.
43:09
Speaker 2: Put into words.
43:11
Speaker 4: And obviously what happened to me is just confirmation that
43:16
Speaker 4: Israel is a racist apartheized state. That being said, spreading
43:22
Speaker 4: awareness going back to who I am and why I
43:26
Speaker 4: do what I do and how I move. What other
43:31
Speaker 4: labor leader in this country that you know is banned
43:34
Speaker 4: from Israel for one hundred years.
43:38
Speaker 2: That'll be me when it comes to Cuba.
43:44
Speaker 4: I brought twenty five people from the Amazon Labor Union
43:47
Speaker 4: to Cuba three four years ago, first labor delegation to Cuba,
43:55
Speaker 4: and we, you know, delivering humanitarian need. Then we graduated
44:02
Speaker 4: from for del Cash University. We stayed in boot camp.
44:06
Speaker 4: We were disciplined, We learned the Cuban way and I
44:10
Speaker 4: never looked back.
44:11
Speaker 2: Been to Cuba every year since.
44:13
Speaker 4: And you may have saw that I was detained two
44:17
Speaker 4: months ago.
44:18
Speaker 2: I took my phone.
44:20
Speaker 4: And they ain't worry about the sixteen other people that
44:23
Speaker 4: they took their phones from. They gave them their phones back.
44:26
Speaker 4: But some of the comrades that I was with heard
44:29
Speaker 4: the ICE agents talking about, oh that's the Amazon guy.
44:33
Speaker 4: We got the Amazon guy. So the target on my
44:36
Speaker 4: back is very much rial and they're detaining other people
44:40
Speaker 4: questioning about me right now as we speak.
44:43
Speaker 2: This just happened, so I.
44:46
Speaker 4: Think it's important. And then I know y'all saw me
44:48
Speaker 4: crash the met gala. I wasn't invited. I wasn't invited
44:52
Speaker 4: to the med Gala, so.
44:53
Speaker 2: I had to crash the party. But we crashing the
44:57
Speaker 2: med gala what's the spread away? It works because if
45:01
Speaker 2: I would have sat.
45:02
Speaker 4: Home twenty minutes away from where Jeff Biggs was about
45:05
Speaker 4: to walk the red carpet forty minutes away from the
45:08
Speaker 4: building where they have a negotiated contract in four years,
45:13
Speaker 4: I'm doing a disservice to myself and to my entire
45:17
Speaker 4: union and the working class as.
45:18
Speaker 2: A labor leader.
45:21
Speaker 4: So I do the things that I do because I
45:25
Speaker 4: asked myself this question, if Chris Maul's doesn't do this work,
45:30
Speaker 4: who's going to do it? And that answer sometimes is
45:33
Speaker 4: very scary because the answer is nobody. And that's the
45:36
Speaker 4: same question that each and every one of y'all got
45:39
Speaker 4: to ask yourselves. If you don't get up and do
45:42
Speaker 4: this work, who's going to do it? And hopefully that
45:46
Speaker 4: motivates you to continue and doing what you're doing.
45:49
Speaker 2: Give it up for Curtas.
45:54
Speaker 3: And like, I think that's like a perfect lead into
45:57
Speaker 3: a final question before we get to Q and A. Right,
45:59
Speaker 3: because you book is called When the Revolution Comes, a
46:03
Speaker 3: fight for the future of the working class, and I
46:06
Speaker 3: want to talk about what that fight, like what's really
46:10
Speaker 3: at stake?
46:10
Speaker 2: And you know, like how big it is?
46:13
Speaker 3: Right because right now from the excitement we felt when
46:17
Speaker 3: you guys won to the depression, we feel that you
46:20
Speaker 3: still don't have a contract to Trump strangling Cuba, invading
46:27
Speaker 3: Venezuela and invading Venezuela, kidnapping its president, going to war
46:31
Speaker 3: with Iran, like the climate spiral, land kin control. We
46:35
Speaker 3: tried and we failed to stop a genocide like it.
46:39
Speaker 3: It feels so hopeless sometimes, but the fight is where
46:45
Speaker 3: like we actually have the chance to change the outcome.
46:50
Speaker 3: And it's not just in our workplaces, and it's not
46:54
Speaker 3: just in Gaza. But like I wanted to ask you,
46:56
Speaker 3: like what your sort of final messages for like working
47:00
Speaker 3: class struggle and movement that can actually turn this tide
47:06
Speaker 3: and give and bring us back to a future that
47:09
Speaker 3: we can give to our kids that's still worth living in.
47:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, great question.
47:14
Speaker 4: And I mean when I say a fight for the future,
47:16
Speaker 4: they're working class. I mean we're fighting for humanity right now.
47:21
Speaker 4: There is no cavalry coming to save us. I'm telling
47:25
Speaker 4: you now, politicians and not our savior. And in the
47:29
Speaker 4: history of the human race, we never voted our way
47:32
Speaker 4: to liberation.
47:34
Speaker 2: We always had to fight most of it with our lives.
47:39
Speaker 4: And when I'm talking about the revolution, Well, the revolution
47:45
Speaker 4: starts with yourself. The times that we're in right now,
47:51
Speaker 4: you know. Yeah, as you mentioned, they're terrible society. Things
47:56
Speaker 4: that are normalized, being to desensitize these things that have
48:00
Speaker 4: happened in real time in our faces. Every day, there's
48:04
Speaker 4: something new on the headlines distracting us.
48:07
Speaker 2: From the bigger picture.
48:10
Speaker 4: The way we was able to beat this two point
48:12
Speaker 4: two trillion dollar company because we came together for one
48:16
Speaker 4: common cause, the same way that people are coming together
48:22
Speaker 4: for Palestine, because it wasn't like this three years ago
48:26
Speaker 4: until we saw the student encampments, the protests, and the streets,
48:32
Speaker 4: the flotillas, you know, all of these different things that
48:36
Speaker 4: we're seeing because people are fed up, young people.
48:41
Speaker 2: Young people are fed up. I knew.
48:46
Speaker 4: One day when I walked into a middle school and
48:49
Speaker 4: this ten year old kid said, Jeff Bezos is a
48:52
Speaker 4: bad band. I said, I'm doing something right because I
48:59
Speaker 4: couldn't imagine myself at ten years old. And I encourage
49:02
Speaker 4: teachers and any educators in the room, bring some of
49:06
Speaker 4: your labor leaders.
49:06
Speaker 2: I'll come to your classroom. I will definitely come.
49:09
Speaker 4: I've been to elementary schools, you name it. I've been
49:13
Speaker 4: there university. I will be there because I know the
49:16
Speaker 4: importance of getting to the youth.
49:21
Speaker 3: You know.
49:21
Speaker 4: Then we don't want them to continue to praise these
49:23
Speaker 4: celebrities and athletes and musicians. We want them to praise
49:28
Speaker 4: the people that's actually doing some great work, and that's
49:31
Speaker 4: people right here in our own community, and reminded ourselves
49:37
Speaker 4: where we came from, because society has changed because of
49:42
Speaker 4: companies like Amazon, who's forcing us to hit one click
49:46
Speaker 4: by stay home, stay isolated. This audio package it shows
49:51
Speaker 4: up to your door. You see one person deliver it,
49:54
Speaker 4: but you never see the ten or twelve people that
49:57
Speaker 4: that box done touched before it got there. Six of
50:01
Speaker 4: them got injured, one of them possibly could have got killed,
50:05
Speaker 4: but you would never hear about it, you know. And
50:09
Speaker 4: that's the message that we all have to spread because
50:14
Speaker 4: somebody in your household, somebody in your neighborhood doesn't know this,
50:18
Speaker 4: doesn't know what's happening at these warehouses, doesn't know what's
50:23
Speaker 4: happened with the Amazon labor Union.
50:25
Speaker 2: As big as that victory was, you already know. We
50:29
Speaker 2: in a country there is very very retroactive and a
50:33
Speaker 2: lot of people here.
50:34
Speaker 4: God amnesias are living worse living in their own bubbles.
50:39
Speaker 4: That's saying, you know, you're in your own bubble, but
50:41
Speaker 4: that's not a good thing.
50:44
Speaker 2: That's up to us to find these people, to.
50:48
Speaker 4: Meet them where they at mainly work, and to get
50:52
Speaker 4: them organized. Because when I say a fight for the
50:57
Speaker 4: future to work in class, the revolution comes once again.
51:04
Speaker 4: That's everybody in this room coming together from one common
51:07
Speaker 4: cause for the greater good of humanity.
51:11
Speaker 2: And I'll give you this last gym.
51:14
Speaker 4: You know, the fight for Palestine is going to liberate
51:18
Speaker 4: the world, but the fight for black and brown indigenous people.
51:23
Speaker 2: It's going to liberate everybody.
51:26
Speaker 1: Thanks, give it up for Chris Mauls everyone.
51:39
Speaker 3: Oh right, gang, that's gonna wrap things up for us today.
51:43
Speaker 3: I want to thank our guest, Chris Small's, co founder
51:47
Speaker 3: and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Go check
51:50
Speaker 3: out Chris's new book, When the Revolution Comes, a Fight
51:54
Speaker 3: for the Future of the Working Class. And thank you
51:57
Speaker 3: to Red Emma's Cooperative Bookstore and Coffeehouse for.
52:00
Speaker 2: Hosting this amazing event.
52:01
Speaker 3: And of course I want to thank you all for
52:03
Speaker 3: listening and I want to thank you for caring. We'll
52:06
Speaker 3: see y'all back here next time for another episode of
52:09
Speaker 3: Working People, and in the meantime, go explore all the
52:12
Speaker 3: great work that we're doing at the Real News Network,
52:15
Speaker 3: where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices
52:18
Speaker 3: and stories from the front lines of struggle. Check us
52:21
Speaker 3: out across our YouTube channel, our different podcast feeds, our website,
52:26
Speaker 3: and our social media pages, and help us do more
52:29
Speaker 3: work like this by going to therealnews dot com, forward slash,
52:33
Speaker 3: donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys,
52:37
Speaker 3: it really makes a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take care
52:42
Speaker 3: of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
52:49
Speaker 2: When my phage you know on the scene.
52:51
Speaker 5: I live on Yes, I live on wherever we go
52:56
Speaker 5: we are going to roll in.
52:58
Speaker 2: A union on its own.
53:00
Speaker 5: I live on Yes. I live on wherever a hungry
53:04
Speaker 5: hungry I'll will just as homeless longer can dig its
53:08
Speaker 5: song I live on, Yes, I live on Well.
53:13
Speaker 2: Mean things are happening in this land? It read a song.
53:17
Speaker 5: I live on, Yes, I'll live on wherever the book
53:20
Speaker 5: mean things are happening in this land is red.
53:24
Speaker 2: I'll live on Yes.
53:26
Speaker 5: I'll live on uh huh, whatever little video tay or
53:30
Speaker 5: media show on.
53:31
Speaker 2: I live on. Yes, I live on.
53:34
Speaker 5: If I have help to make this a better word
53:37
Speaker 5: to live here, I'll live on. Yes, I'll live on.
53:41
Speaker 5: When my body is solid and in some loans are brave,
53:46
Speaker 5: I'll live on.
53:47
Speaker 2: Yes, I live on. With my songs and poems are read,
53:54
Speaker 2: I'll live on.
53:55
Speaker 5: Yes, I live on.