How Two Friends Beat Amazon and Built a Union: An Update

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran. This year, we explored the story of Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, two Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York City, who had embarked on an improbable attempt to create the company’s first union and succeeded. Today, we return to their story and learn about the current state of their organizing effort. Guest: Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, warehouse workers who led the first successful unionization attempt at Amazon.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Michael.
0:02.0	This week, the Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and learning
0:06.8	what's happened in the time since the first ran.
0:09.7	Today, we return to the story of how two friends and fellow warehouse workers, Chris Smalls
0:15.8	and Derek Palmer beat the odds to form Amazon's first union and learn the current state of
0:23.4	their organizing efforts.
0:25.8	This is Chris and Derek.
0:34.5	This is my colleague, Michael, who's the host of the Daily.
0:37.8	Hi, I'm really grateful because I know you guys are in the middle of what is perhaps
0:42.9	the biggest moment of your life that you made time to talk to us.
0:45.3	Oh, absolutely.
0:46.3	Yeah, thank you.
0:47.3	Thank you, really.
0:48.3	Very much.
0:49.3	So, Chris and Derek, I want to start by asking you both about how you came to Amazon
0:54.8	and to the JFK 8 warehouse in the first place.
0:58.3	What was it that brought you both there?
1:02.2	Well, I was employed for Amazon since 2015.
1:08.8	I was an entry-level worker, got hired as a picker warehouse associate, got promoted
1:16.0	into a process assistant in my first year, opened up three facilities for Amazon.
1:21.8	Wow.
1:22.8	So, JFK was actually my last facility.
	...

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