President Biden says Amazon union organizer Christian Smalls is his 'kind of trouble' and 'let's not stop'

• Last week, six union organizers went to the White House to meet with the vice president and labor secretary.
• President Joe Biden made a surprise appearance to speak with the unionizing workers.

Union organizers at companies from Starbucks to Amazon voyaged to the White House last week.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh — who respectively chair and co-chair the Biden administration's taskforce on supporting unions — sat down with six workers to hear their stories. One of those workers was Christian Smalls, the creator of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). ALU made history when the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize, a first for the retail behemoth.

The workers were also joined by a surprise guest: President Joe Biden.

In a new video from the event, Biden is seen greeting Smalls with a hug and handshake. "You're trouble, man," Biden tells Smalls, who replies, "Yeah, I am."

"I like you, you're my kind of trouble," Biden said, congratulating Smalls.

"I got in a little trouble, you may recall. I was saying I was looking forward to them getting organized," Biden added. "But you got it done in one place."

He also told Smalls "let's not stop," seemingly alluding to more organizing across Amazon's warehouses. After the ALU pulled off its upstart victory in early April, Biden spoke about the organizing effort at the North America's Building Trade Unions conference.

"Amazon, here we come," Biden said. "Watch."

Alex Speidel, a lead organizer with United Paizo Workers/CWA who attended last week's meeting, previously told Insider that it was an "unbelievable surprise" to meet the president. The White House visit came as a swell of organizing sweeps across retail stores from Starbucks to REI to Apple. Biden has repeatedly declared that he intends to be "most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history."

That's a promise that Sen. Bernie Sanders, a long-time labor advocate, has asked Biden to keep. He's called upon the president to implement an executive order banning federal contracts from going to companies breaking labor laws, and has said that Democrats need to rally behind organized labor.

The White House meeting was Smalls' second stop of the day. He testified at a Senate Budget Committee hearing chaired by Sanders. The topic: "Should Taxpayer Dollars Go to Companies that Violate Labor Laws?"

"People are the ones who make these companies operate," Smalls told the committee, "and if we are not protected and if the process for when we hold these companies accountable is not working for us, then that's the reason why we're here today."