Amazon labor organizer popped champagne and thanked Jeff Bezos for going to space: 'When he was up there, we was signing people up'
- Supporters of the Amazon Labor Union celebrated their victory at the NLRB in New York.
- Organizer Christian Smalls thanked former CEO Jeff Bezos for going into space.
Amazon Labor Union organizer Christian Smalls would like to thank Jeff Bezos — for going into space.
The former Amazon employee spearheaded the first successful effort to unionize an Amazon warehouse, which was solidified after the National Labor Relations Board concluded counting votes Friday.
Outside the NLRB offices in Brooklyn, Smalls popped a bottle of champagne and said, "to the first Amazon union in history." The warehouse is in Staten Island, New York, and is known as JFK8.
"We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space, because when he was up there, we was signing people up," Smalls said. "We were out here getting signatures."
Smalls was referring to Bezos' flight with his Blue Origin space company in July.
"I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this," Bezos had said after the flight.
The NLRB finished counting votes Friday morning. Workers submitted 2654 votes for and 2131 against joining the Amazon Labor Union, a new group that Smalls founded. The ALU is working to unionize another warehouse on Staten Island, which will vote in the coming weeks.
Amazon has vigorously fought to keep its warehouses from unionizing. In a blog post, the company said it was "disappointed" with Friday's vote and is thinking about submitting to a federal labor panel an objection related to the conduct of the election.
Smalls became a vocal Amazon labor advocate over coronavirus safety measures in March 2020, and was fired the same month for what the company said was an unrelated event.
In a leaked memo obtained by Vice in 2020, an Amazon layer told Jeff Bezos was that Smalls was "not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position."
Smalls has remained bullish about the union's prospects throughout months of organizing.
"We've never seen a campaign ever like this before. We're not a traditional union. We don't have the resources. We started from scratch with nothing," Smalls told Insider.