Christian Smalls - on Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden’s Corruption & The Power of the People
Joining me today is the leader of the Amazon Labor Union Christian Smalls.We will be talking about bringing cultures together to fight Amazon, Joe Biden's hypocrisy on labour unions, populist uprisings & the establishment pushing division.You can follow Christian on X @Shut_DownAmazon. --💙Support this channel directly here: https://bit.ly/RussellBrand-SupportVisit the new merch store: https://bit.ly/Stay-Free-StoreFollow on social media:X: @rustyrocketsINSTAGRAM: @russellbrandFACEBOOK: @russellbrand
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Now, one thing we know for sure that happened in the pandemic period is the greatest wealth
transfer in the history of our kind.
Ordinary working people from across the globe were subjugated and exploited.
Notable among the profiteers was the Amazon Corporation.
We're seeing big tech behemoths emerge across the globe, subjecting ordinary people to the kind of tyrannical power not experienced since the age of Caesar.
But similarly, there was an uprising of opposition, as there always will be.
Christian Smalls from Staten Island, the one red borough in a sea of blue,
led the Amazon revolution.
Christian Smalls is the leader of the Amazon Labour Union who stood up to these exploitative
establishment globalist interests.
Christian, thanks for joining us today, mate.
Glad to be back again.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, mate.
Thanks for coming on again.
Yeah, it's good to speak to you again, mate.
You were fantastic last time we spoke.
One of the things I'm interested in talking with you about is your recent tweet about Joe Biden.
Joe Biden is one of them leaders that says that he's always going to speak out on behalf of ordinary Americans.
He's going to support the interests of ordinary Americans.
In fact, recently he posted, I believe every American worker should have a free and fair choice.
To join a union.
You, in spite of having visited the White House, opposed that post.
Can you tell me what your position is on the Biden administration and how they've supported ordinary Americans?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I'll be very clear, like you mentioned, you know, I've been to the White House, I met the man, I met the president, and I met pretty much everybody in his administration, from the Secretary of Labor to the Vice President Kamala as well, and a number of prominent politicians I've met as well.
And when I think about Our victory against Amazon and not only just Amazon, but with the workers of Starbucks, Trader Joe's, Apple, Google, all these new unions that are forming and joining in the last year or two.
I'm thinking about the root cause on why it's been so difficult in this country.
And for me, somebody like me who just started traveling abroad and learning the different laws that are right over our border in Canada and when I crossed the sea to come to the UK and I'm seeing all these progressive laws that make it easier and better to organize and also hold corporations accountable.
I'm wondering, as a new organizer, as a new union, why haven't we gotten the same type of laws on paper in America?
And when I look at the Biden administration, yes, they have done some good things, progressive things with the NLRB.
But the process is very slow.
I myself was wrongfully fired three and a half years ago from Amazon.
I still don't have my job back.
So instead, the only way I felt to protect myself and protect other workers is by forming a union, which we did.
Very difficult, by the way, because Amazon spent $14.2 million last year alone trying to stop this worker-led union.
But there's no accountability.
Uh, and there's no laws that make it easier for working class people like myself and other Americans to join these unions.
And that's what I have an issue with here in this country.
It feels like the language of supporting ordinary Americans and unifying America and supporting diversity and standing up for oppressed people and standing up for American workers is a big part of the rhetoric of the current administration, but it doesn't seem like it's a big part of the policy.
Do you think that the ability of a global organisation like Amazon to spend $15 million Lobbying to ensure that their interests are met instead of the interests of ordinary Americans is part of the reason that the Biden administration will pay lip service to supporting American workers but when it comes to it will ultimately support the interests of their paymasters.
Have you found that to be your experience and what kind of unity from like MAGA Trump voters To working people of all cultural and political persuasions is going to be required, Christian.
And is it possible?
Because I suppose one of the things that excites me about you is that you were just working at Amazon and you took a role of leadership and you've been impactful and effective.
I know a lot of people like in our rumble chat right now feel that ordinary people don't have a chance against the machine, against the corporate elites, against the state establishment and state power.
But is there anything you can say that can help people to recognize that when we come together there is a great power?
Yeah, absolutely.
When people ask me all the time, you know, how was you able to defeat, along with, you know, working class people, how were you able to defeat Amazon, a trillion dollar company with unlimited money and resources?
Easy.
People power.
Bringing people together from all different backgrounds, all different cultures, all different ideology.
Didn't matter whether you were left, right, blue, green, yellow.
It doesn't matter.
The common enemy will always be Jeff Bezos.
Uh, one of the richest people in the world and Amazon, uh, one of the most powerful corporations in the world.
And that's what we kept our focus on and our attention where our messaging is.
Staten Island, like you mentioned in the beginning is the only red borough out of the five boroughs of New York city.
I can't go over there talking about.
Oh, capitalism and Bernie Sanders and AOC.
It has to be a common issue that everybody can agree.
And most of the time, when it comes to wages, I think we all can agree as working class people that everybody deserves a wage, especially when you're being deemed an essential worker.
So that's how bringing people together, that's how you're able to defeat the establishment.
No matter what corporation or what industry, no amount of money in the world can amount to the power of people when we come together.
Yeah, I'm noticing Christian, a kind of populist uprising all over the world.
It comes in different forms and the establishment are making, are working very hard to ensure
that people stay divided along cultural lines because when there is a kind of unity that
transcends the kind of cultural issues that are pushed to the forefront, there exists
all of a sudden the power to topple regimes.
I feel that with Amazon alone, there is, there are strikes and actions against Amazon and
their elitist practices in over 30 countries.
Have you noticed that the problems that working people across the world are facing have a
kind of, I don't know, sort of some unifying characteristics?
Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, the international solidarity is imperative.
It's a must.
This is the reason why I travel abroad often to connect these struggles.
The same thing that's happening in Staten Island is happening right now in COVID-3 UK right now.
These warehouse workers are subjected to the same working conditions no matter where they are on the planet.
So we must connect the struggles, we must stay together, and we must build international solidarity because Amazon is an international company.
It employs over two and a half million people worldwide, a million of them in the States alone.
So we have to understand that when we're talking about accountability and these politicians, like you mentioned, the president can't be talking out of both sides of the mouth.
He can't say he stands with workers one day and then the same day give Jeff Bezos $10 billion of our tax dollars to fly to space on a penis rocket.
We cannot accept that anymore.
He can't say he stands with workers and then break the railroad strike.
He can't say every worker deserves to be in the union.
But there's no laws that allow that to happen on a federal level.
These type of things, and these type of rhetoric, these tweets, these good talking points, we're not going to settle for that anymore.
And I think the time is now that not just me as a labor leader, but other labor leaders in the world, in the country, speak up, and step up, and stand up, and fight back.
Because if we don't, we're going to be subjected to what we've been getting, and that hasn't been much.
One of the reasons, Christian, that many centralist, neoliberal, authoritarian states are beginning
to sound the same is perhaps they no longer feel that they have to reach working people,
whatever country, whether it's yours or whether it's mine, because the forthcoming AI and
automation revolution means that working people are going to have even less power.
It's become more and more likely that people are expendable.
More and more likely that if people demand to be paid decent wages for hard work, that
they can easily be dispatched and replaced by increasing automation technology.
I recently saw a piece, in fact, about how Amazon are able to stock their shelves using robots and able to handle dispatch and people are talking about drones the whole time.
Do you feel that conditions will get worse for working people because, you know, because ultimately automation facilitates the powerful?
Yeah, well that's the model of corporations and billionaires.
How do we save the company money?
How do we continue to exploit workers until we no longer need them?
And that's always been their motto.
Doesn't matter.
The future is coming.
The future is here.
And AI technology is still a gray area on how that's going to be integrated into our workforce.
But I can tell you this.
We as people have the power to stop that.
And the ability to design how we want to work in our facilities, in our warehouse, in our industries.
We cannot allow AI technology.
I love technology, by the way.
I'm born in the 80s, but I grew up in the 90s and I love technology.
The problem is I do not like how technology has adapted to our society and how society has adapted to technology.
And what I mean by that is 10 years ago, I would walk into a store and I'll see everybody at the register.
Now you walk into a store and you've got to sell kiosks and it's telling you to bag your own items.
There's no human interaction.
And when we adapt to that, Uh, it really is alarming on how society's adapted.
I can't even knock on my neighbor's door and borrow sugar because they have an idea of, now I can just click on Amazon.com and have this sugar delivered to my-my doorsteps without even having human interaction.
And that is very dangerous when you don't have human interaction.
I don't-I don't want a society like that.
I think a village, uh, needs to stay a village.
And I think people, community, is important.
And having people behind technology in a controlled way is how we need to move forward.
Not just saying, you know what?
AI needs to take over for me.
Robots can replace the work that I do.
Because that's not the way to go.
That's only going to take jobs away.
So we have to, as laborers, as working class people, We have to put our foot down now and let these corporations, these politicians as well, who are in bed with these corporations, let them know that we're not going to accept being replaced by robots.
I tell you what, I think you are the perfect example of what I mean when we say on this channel, in this movement, that we have to rise up together, that we have to find leaders within our communities that are going to look for novel ways to oppose power, to look beyond the divisions that people continually inflict upon us.
There are a lot of very powerful, loving statements coming up in the chat and a lot of inquiries about your t-shirt, which I know is an anti-Amazon t-shirt.
There you go.
There's the full message, guys.
That is the full message.
Union all the way!
Union all the way!
Thank you so much for being such a pro-power voice, for recognising the power, the necessary power, Christian, of community and our sacred power as individuals working together.
I think it's a very important message to convey.
I wish you all the best with your fight against Amazon and your fight for rights for working people across America.
Thank you for joining us today, Christian.
Thank you for having me.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you.
It's a joy to have you on.
You can find Christian Smalls on X at at shut underscore down Amazon and support his movement.
