Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 255: Union Power — with Brett Story and Chris Smalls
Speakers: Kathy Feng, Am Johal, Chris Smalls, Brett Story
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Kathy Feng 0:04
Hello listeners! I’m Kathy Feng with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by filmmaker Brett Story and labour organizer Chris Smalls. Brett is the co-director of UNION, a documentary film that follows the efforts of the Amazon Labor Union and their campaign to unionize the first Amazon warehouse in American history. The movement was spearheaded by Chris, a former Amazon warehouse supervisor who was fired in 2020 after organizing a protest against Amazon’s lack of COVID-19 safety protocols. Brett and Chris chat about the process of making the film, the state of organizing in the contemporary moment, and the international reception of UNION.
Enjoy the episode!
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Am Johal 0:57
Hello, welcome to Below the Radar. Delighted that you could join us again. This week, we have special guests who have joined us here in Vancouver. Brett Story and Chris Smalls are here. Welcome both of you.
Chris Smalls 1:10
Thank you. Thank you, Am.
Brett Story 1:12
Hey, great to be here.
Am Johal 1:13
Great. In a couple of hours, there's going to be DOXA, our local, wonderful documentary film festival in Vancouver. They're going to be doing a premiere of UNION, the new documentary directed by Brett Story, and also featuring Chris Smalls, of course. And you have a collaborating director as well. But I'll start with you, would you like to set up the film a little bit.
Brett Story 1:38
Sure. Yeah. So this is a project co-directed by myself and Steve Maing, and it's a film that chronicles the organizing efforts of Chris Smalls and a group of Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island called JFK8 as they attempt to form the very first unionized warehouse in the United States. Our producers, Samantha and Mars, had first reached out to Chris way back in 2020. Chris was in the national news for having led a walkout—and maybe you can talk more about this, Chris—of the facility where he was working to protest the company's lack of COVID precautions. Shortly after that, he was fired. And, you know, and that just, I think, galvanized the movement, galvanized Chris. So Sam and Mars reached out and were talking to him about a project, and I got involved a few months later in early 2021. And about that same time, there was an organizing effort at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama. And unfortunately, they lost, and in the wake of that loss, Chris and his fellow organizers and workers decided that they were going to try their own independent effort to unionize JFK8.
Am Johal 2:45
Yeah, so there's some really intense scenes in the film. And my God, what a journey it's been, just in terms of the forms of coercion that the company puts on people trying to organize and raise issues, and also the policing aspects that ultimately come in. Wondering if you can maybe introduce yourself a little bit and also share how you found yourself in the middle of this entangled and tense story.
Chris Smalls 3:10
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. My name is Chris Smalls. I'm the president of the Amazon Labor Union. Formerly an Amazon worker for five years. I started with the company in 2015, worked my way up to a supervisor position, and was in that position for four and a half years, opening up three warehouses in the tri-state area. New Jersey was my first one, EWR9; Connecticut, BDL2 Windsor; and JFK Staten Island was my last facility. Like Brett mentioned, in 2020, I led a walk out over COVID-19 that led to my firing. And, you know, I got thrusted into the organizing realm. I wasn't trying to organize a union. I wasn't trying to, you know, take on a company in any type of fashion, just trying to speak up about health and safety and try to protect my coworkers and my colleagues who I spend, you know, 60 hours a week with. You know, more time than I do with my own family. So you know, this happened to me on a public scale, and it motivated me when the richest man in the world mentioned—he actually called me not smart or articulate, and that stigma, along with saying to make me the face of the unionizing efforts, it motivated me to continue organizing. So, you know, one thing led to another, and you know, two years after my firing, we became the first [Amazon] union in American history. It's very new, but you know this, this basically just says that, uh, you know, anybody can do the things that I've done, and anybody that's a worker, no matter what industry, can take on their company and fight back.
Am Johal 4:51
Yeah, as you said, an incredibly wealthy company, incredible profits that they make, and wondering if you can share a little bit some of the roadblocks they threw up as you attempted to raise issues and attempted to unionize, because, of course, they don't want this to proliferate across the company. And so if you could share a little bit to the kinds of things they did to try to stop this from happening.
Chris Smalls 5:18
Well, yeah, they threw everything at us. You know, they spent—on record, they spent $14.2 million in one year on stopping our efforts. They had million dollar lawyers that they, you know, used to appeal all of our victories in court. They pay union busters, these folks that walk around the warehouse is 24/7 trying to convince people to, you know, vote no or discredit the union or stray away from the union. They pay these folks anywhere between $3,000 a day to $10,000 a day. They use the policing, NYPD, of course. This, uh, you know, every time I was organizing, we were accosted by police. And yeah, they use propaganda. They buy the media, they spin narratives, they dig into people's personal lives. And the most important thing is they surveil us. You know, we've been followed. You know, they have people watching our social media posts, and we've definitely been in federal court a few times over. You know there's Tiktok videos. So we know that there's no, there's no limit to the amount that they're willing to go. And as an organizer, now on this side, we see how evil the company can really be. So you know, everything that's going on right now, even with the students, you know, it just takes me back to everything that we face going against Amazon.
Am Johal 6:43
Now, Brett, you, of course, you have a rigorous background in geography. You're a Marxist geographer, studied with important people, and I know that you're, you know, you're influenced by people like Ruth Wilson Gilmore and David Harvey and many others at UofT. For somebody from your background in research and doing a PhD, how did you fall upon filmmaking? We've, of course, screened A Prison in Twelve Landscapes, The Hottest August—award winning film. You've gotten many accolades through all this while you've been doing academic work and also writing a book as well. Wondering if you could sort of share a little bit, sort of, your approach to filmmaking, how you fell upon it. Because I think what is really significant about your work is the aesthetic touch you bring to a really rigorous political analysis.
Brett Story 7:33
Sure. Thanks. Yeah. I love an opportunity to talk about geography (laughs), like the true nerd that I am. You know, I was making films before I pursued graduate studies. And it was really filmmaking, political filmmaking, that introduced me to the field of geography. I made multiple films before I made the film that counts as my first film. This is the way it works when you're self taught. And so one of my earliest films that... that sort of doesn't count as the first film, is a little, very handmade project about gentrification and about facing the eviction of my home in my early 20s. Which was an eviction that was reminiscent of having been evicted from a house I lived in, an apartment I lived in with my mom, who was a single mother, who was very, very poor. So I had this early childhood experience of poverty, dealing with housing insecurity, was politicized through that experience, and in my early 20s, was facing an eviction, and decided—I was this, you know, a painter, a photographer, I interested in making art, but also in politics and activism and and did a lot of radio and kind of was like, maybe film. Maybe filmmaking is like this way that I can, you know, find a kind of space to do political work that's also artistic work. And so I made a scrappy little film about gentrification, and discovered this body of work by academics that were also activists. And that's really important to me, that intellectual scholarship work not be, you know, divorced from struggle on the ground, these things need each other. They're necessary to each other.
And then my first real film, so quote, unquote, is a film called Land of Destiny, which is a film about labor struggle, a very different kind of labour struggle in a town in Ontario that was facing an epidemic of cancers. And I made this film. Started making this film in 2006 and was inspired by a whole history of labour films, and thought I would be making a film in which this epidemic of cancers—all these workers working in petrochemical plants who were all dying and going to each other's funerals—would result in a kind of labour uprising. And instead, instead of a labour uprising, as I started filming, I realized that there was a kind of mass paralysis and that this was actually about the state of organized labour. You know, we know organized labour has been in decline for many decades. In 2005 when I was making this film, this town was being deindustrialized. Could see what was happening in nearby Detroit. Labour was just feeling one defeat after another. And so these workers, instead of rising up against their bosses, they, you know, they just decided to sort of swallow their own pain and give into a kind of silence.
And that was really—and the film becomes a kind of portrayal of place, and the question of geography is really central to that. Like, Why does a place exist? How do people, how do working class people in a working class town identify and find value in their work, so much so that, like the possibility that their work could disappear was more terrifying to them, even than the idea that they would get sick because of their work? So that, you know, for me, those sort of questions about place, you know, where... You know today, where are warehouses being built? Where is Amazon setting up shop? How far do workers have to travel? How does the long commute between where workers live and where do they go to work? How does that affect their willingness to to belong, you know, to sign up and form a union? I mean, it's interesting to me as a question of space, that Chris and other folks in the ALU set up their organizing tent deliberately at a bus stop. The bus stop where people were getting off after a maybe 2-hour commute and going into a 10-hour shift. So, yeah, I think that there's some really interesting questions that can be asked about how cinema is itself a way of making space, space for thinking and engaging and meeting people, and how questions of political struggle are kind of indivisible from questions of place making and space making.
Am Johal 11:50
When the film starts out, I just caught a little bit of it this morning, and be watching the whole thing in the cinema with both of you shortly. But the opening of the film—to me, it felt, it reminded me a little bit of Allan Sekula's work, don't know if that was intentional or not. But were there other labour films as well, you know, Harlan County [USA (1976)]? There's a wonderful history of labour films and documentaries out there that you, sort of, drew from, or were part of your repertoire in thinking through the choices in this film in terms of editing.
Brett Story 12:21
Yeah, yeah. Lots of references. I mean, Allan Sekula is a huge reference. Thinking about like, there's a book of his that I really love called Fish Story, which is all about—it's about the cargo ship container, it's about supply chain capitalism, it's about the sea as a space to make capitalism visible. And when we were making this film, you know, we were, we were filming primarily with the organizers, you know. We wanted to make an intimate portrait, following and honouring the work they were doing, being with them, spending time with them at the bus stop. So there was a question of, of how to make sure that we didn't lose sight of the bigger structural picture, which is, you know, which is capitalism. And so, yeah, the sort of visual motifs that you see in the film include a lot of cargo containers. Because, of course, Amazon isn't just a company, it isn't just a warehouse. It's a global logistics monolith that has, that defines the international supply chain capitalism as we know it now. Yeah, and, and there's a whole history of, sort of, essay films and political struggle films and labour films that I'd love to think of this film as, as paying homage to, including Allan Sekula's work, including Harlan County USA, including Julia Reichert's really important work.
Am Johal 13:47
Chris, so I mean, in the film, there's some intense moments of coercion by the company, police stuff, people being arrested, spaces right inside there. But I'm wondering, in the process of—mode of organizing, as you meet with other workers, what's the state of organizing now? Or what's been the most effective way to bring more workers onto being in a place where they actually have the capacity to resist? When you're going up in such a big company, it seems like an insurmountable kind of struggle, but you've been effective in forming a union and having victories along the way, which, of course, as you know, as an organizer, you need that kind of momentum to—you need victories to sustain the movement, right?
Chris Smalls 14:31
Yeah. I mean, small victories matter. And what we did with the ALU, we created a culture that, you know, Amazon can't, can never take away. You know, our victory inspired, you know, millions of workers around the world. We're not just, you know, big here in the US, we're we're big all over the world. And you know, even the workers at JFK8 can't even fathom that. You know that their building has made such history that it's going to be taught to generations. And for me, I have to connect those dots, by building these bridges with communities outside of, you know, New York. And that's a difficult task when we've been so divided for decades, and the labor struggle has been in shambles for a while, especially in our country.
So just understanding that this moment is, it's very unprecedented. It's definitely going to be a moment, a defining moment for what the history of all of our countries are looking at in the future, and labour has to lead the way. You know, we're all a part of the working class. And understanding that you know this this moment is bigger than us, is really what keeps me going and motivate me to, you know, connect the dots and bring community into this fight. Meaning that this Amazon fight that we're in now is absolutely everybody's fight. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, is involved in everybody's life in some form or fashion. And that should upset somebody. It should upset everybody. Not just the ALU, because it's everybody's tax dollars that's paying for this man to fly to space. It's, um, it's our tax dollars that are, that are being used to invest into the military complex. AWS, the government, that's where they make their revenue from, more so than the warehouse. So folks need to know, you know, um, this company went from selling books out of a garage to now they own a medical company. So this is, uh, something that's very alarming. In the next few years, one out of every four Americans are going to work for this company, or, know somebody who's going to work at this company. So this is, this is really a moment where the ALU can expose a lot of the dirty laundry, but also, you know, bring the community—and I mean everybody in the working class—into this fight to hold corporations accountable, not just Amazon.
Brett Story 17:18
And maybe I'll just jump in and say, like it was really striking to us when we first started filming with Chris and the other folks, starting this effort that, you know, regardless of any ability to predict the outcome of this particular unionization effort, we understood almost immediately that this was also a story of a generation. A generation that has not seen a lot of victories in its lifetime, but understands completely, certainly better than many, many, that their current status under capitalism is completely untenable, right? There's no believable story that they're going to be able to have a nice middle class life, so long as a company like Amazon defines low wage work, it's insecure work, it's low wage work. It's a workplace that's defined by a high turnover, and it's ruining the environment. It's rife with racial inequities.
So this is a... You know, it's a portrait, also, of a generation that understands that if they want to have value, they need to insist on it themselves. And we would, we would just hang out with these guys at the bus stop or on the Zoom meetings or under the tent, and just see this really beautiful thing happen, which was a Black-led, multiracial, multiclass struggle of people who felt and found a sense of purpose and value in each other in distinction from their experience in a workplace which was utterly about dehumanization and being told that they have no value, that they're completely disposable. Not even—I mean, one of the complaints you hear over and over again is just like, "I can't, I can't talk to, I can't talk to anyone who works for the company, like an app tells me if I'm doing a shift or if I'm fired." You know? So the utter level of dehumanization that occurs on purpose through the mechanics of this company has just, you know, made the contrast really stark for people. And it was, you know, it was just really extraordinary to watch. Watch these—this very small group of tenacious activists say enough is enough, we're taking you on.
Am Johal 19:35
There's, you know, moments in the film, you feel the sort of pandemic placement of—there's the Zoom calls, but also the precarity of platform capital, in a way. The... you know, these things were coming anyway. But in the middle of the pandemic, all the food delivery apps, all the precarization of labour. People being independent contractors, rather than having the benefits of place that's only accelerated and in many ways. And I'm wondering that aspect of you know, AI and all of those types of things, the effects a company like Amazon is going through, how you think that through as a labour organizer and organizing workers, what are some of the challenges that artificial intelligence is bringing to the table?
Chris Smalls 20:22
Well, once again, you know, Amazon is not the only company looking into it. You know, and a lot of other unions need to to really understand what's going on, because other side is organizing against us, and they have a lot of money and resources, and yeah, in the next few years, I believe AI can eliminate nearly 50% of American jobs. So labour definitely needs to be prepared and prepare their members and also prepare the working class. You know, we have to get some federal laws passed that's going to protect us and protect our jobs. And, you know, we're just one small piece to this. But I can definitely do what I can on my end, you know, educate, educating people on the fact that, yeah, AI is a real thing that is coming to replace our jobs. It's not here to assist, as they the company is saying it's here to assist making our jobs easier. No, they will absolutely try to cut corners and pay these AIs—or not even, create these AI robots so that they can replace us, and we have to be prepared for that.
Am Johal 21:40
Yeah, you've had a chance to screen the film probably a few times now. I think you were just in Toronto the other day with Astra Taylor, one of our former guests Below the Radar, one of our favorite people. How's the reception to the screenings been so far?
Brett Story 21:54
Oh my god. It's been amazing. It's been so amazing. I mean, it's, we've, we've screened it in a few different countries, now. We've screened it in, obviously, the US. It premiered at Sundance. We've been to Copenhagen, we've been to Switzerland, Toronto, Vancouver. And so the—you know, one question we had is like, is this going to feel like a very American story? Is it going to translate out of the country, and and absolutely. I mean, I think instinctively everybody understands exactly what Chris is saying, that this is an international issue. The stakes are international, that declining union density is a problem all over the western world, that we're in a moment of global labour resurgence and other kinds of resurgence.
You know, look at the organizing happening around Palestine. People everywhere saying, "enough." Enough of this. We are—it's time to hold people accountable, corporations, governments, military contractors. It's time to hold them accountable. So the screenings have been totally amazing, almost entirely sold out almost everywhere we go. Lots of labour organizers in the audiences. I had some old activist friends in the audience in Toronto. And I was, I was a little nervous there. They can be quite... (laughs) They—judgmental, and they've, you know, they've really been through it. And all of them felt like very, very recognized and seen by the film, and also inspired. And that was really important to us, like we are not romanticizing labour struggle in this film. Labour organizing is hard. We see these guys fight it out. And that was crucial, because actually it's more inspiring to see real people do hard work, get tired, sometimes fight with each other, and then... And then win. That's to my mind, and way more inspiring, way more motivating, than just painting struggle as something, you know, easy and heroic. And it is heroic, but it's heroic because it's ordinary, real people who have to put in—who put in the time, who put in the time, and that's what these guys did.
Am Johal 23:58
Thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar. I know you're tight on time, but anything you'd like to add?
Chris Smalls 24:04
No, yeah, just support the Amazon Labor Union. We're independent, worker-led union, amazonlaborunion.org.
Am Johal 24:13
Awesome. We'll link to it in our in our show notes, and I look forward to seeing the the film in the next couple hours. So thank you.
Chris Smalls 24:18
Thank you.
Am Johal 24:19
Thank you for coming.
Brett Story 24:19
This is a great conversation. Thank you.
Chris Smalls 24:21
Appreciate it.
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Kathy Feng 24:28
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Thanks for listening to our conversation with Brett Story and Chris Smalls. If you would like to find out more about their work, and to learn more about Amazon Labor Union and any upcoming screenings of UNION, check out the show notes.
If you would like to support our podcast, you can donate at the link in the description below. Your generous donation will help support the podcast's activities and associated public events with SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement.
Thanks again for listening, and we’ll catch you next time on Below the Radar.
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