“Any message for AOC specifically?” news outlet Status Coup asked Chris Smalls, the organizer behind the successful unionization of the first Amazon warehouse in the country. “Hell no, I’m not giving her no... she doesn’t deserve this moment,” he declared.
For decades, Amazon has deployed aggressive tactics to bust unionization efforts, and with very minimal funding, the effort by Smalls and his team to unionize was a longshot. However, with the political and economic winds in their favor - a tight labor market and a pro-union National Labor Relations Board under President Biden, employees at the fulfillment center known as JFK 8 voted in support of the Amazon Labor Union. Last summer, Smalls told of the time he went down to Washington, D.C. when Squad members were sleeping on the Capitol steps to protest the end of the eviction pause. He was trying to court their attendance at a pro-union rally at the Staten Island warehouse in August.
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Smalls pointed out he personally invited New York Progressives like AOC and Mondaire Jones. “They were positive when I met them in person,” he said on the Krystal Kyle & Friends Podcast. “I met Cori Bush on the steps. I brought them ALU shirts. We tried to convince them to come up there. AOC was like, ‘yeah, take my information.’”
Smalls revealed he had three meetings with members of her staff. “Leading up to the rally everything was good up until the last second. They were like ‘yeah, they can’t make it.” I was like wow.” “They didn’t give me a real reason besides there is a security threat for AOC, and I’m like, I was just sleeping on the steps with her in DC, she had no security there. Had maybe one person there. It didn’t make sense because they said they canceled all her in person meetings for the rest of the month then she at the Met Gala.”
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Last Thursday, when the unionizing vote was announced, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out her support via muscle-flexing emojis, which in turn drew criticism from Krystal Ball, co-host of the Krystal Kyle and Friends and Breaking Points podcasts, and Progressive journalist Jordan Chariton. “These are your constituents and you couldn’t be bothered to show up until they’re on the cusp of victory,” Ball wrote in a tweet.
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