Excellent New Long Form Interview Out Tonight, With Christian Smalls, The President Of The JFK8 / Amazon Labor Union

Every bit of the below in blue is Mr. Smalls, speaking in his own voice. Take it to heart, you Amazonian middle managers. He. Will. Not. Back. Down.

It is an excellent read. Do go read it all -- this is a new world, dawning -- in the right of the workers to be heard, and to be. . . respected, and paid fairly for what they've added to Mr. Bezos' billions:

. . .Number one: you have to be invested in the company. I was invested in the company. I spent nearly five years of my life, opened up three facilities, and I started from entry level. I pretty much learned how to cheat the system to move up, because you don’t last long trying to make rate every day.

I did work hard. I worked hard to learn the ins and outs of the company. When I became a supervisor, I wanted to learn even more than that. I was invested in the company, to the point where I knew the company operations better than operations. The managers that it hired — the college hires, the new hires — had to come see me to be trained about what their job would entail every day.

So when it came to organizing, it was the same thing. I had to be a leader in the building. I had to be a leader with the company, and now I just played for a different team. I took my leadership skills, and I transitioned into what you guys see today. . . .

[At Amazon: it's all about. . .] the mandatory overtime, the peak season, the holiday seasons. . . .

We were spending so much time together that the people I work with became my family. They became my extended family. I would confide in them the way I confide in anybody because I saw them every day and vice versa. They would come to me and tell me things that were going on at home. . . .

I became more than just a supervisor. I was a friend; I was a therapist. I was whatever they wanted me to be, to make sure that their day went more smoothly than being treated as a robot on station.

Building the relationships took several conversations, consistent conversing. Same thing with organizing a committee: you find your leaders naturally. For the ones that really take charge, put in the effort, it’s natural. You can’t teach that; you can’t train that. And when you see a natural leader, you want to have people galvanized behind that leader. Whatever committees you see fit, you want to make that committee as soon as possible. . . .

At Staten Island, we created our own culture. Amazon has its own culture that is run completely on metrics, numbers, and no human interaction. We interacted. We brought a human aspect to it. We cared for one another. We showed the workers every day that we cared for them. Even if they disliked us, we didn’t argue. . . .

Indeed -- It has long been a point of pride, with me -- to be able to see real potential (potential others have overlooked, for a host of truly stupid reasons) -- and to see. . . natural leadership. He certainly is. . . the genuine article. You can't get around. . . the genuine article. Smiling -- off, into the night. . . now.

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