Hi everybody, Mary Ann Williamson here. Thank you so much for being with me. This is an exciting interview for me. It's something I've been wanting to do.

It has been scheduled and rescheduled. I could do it, but then he couldn't do it, he could do it, but then I couldn't do it.

And finally, today was the big day I got to interview labor organizer Chris Smalls. Christian Smalls is someone who has already made history in his young life.

He has actually led a successful union drive at Amazon. Amazon, as we know, is a huge corporate behemoth and it is one of these huge corporate entities that has done everything in its power to keep unions out of its shop.

Now, you might say, as I think any reason a poor person would say, with the billions of dollars that Amazon makes, the billions of dollars in profit that accrue not only to its stockholders, but also to the big man himself, Jeff Bezos.

Why would they not want to give workers all the safety benefits, all the health benefits, all the things that will just enable those workers to have a dignified life to make a living wage.

And to be able to work with some happiness and some productivity and creativity that feels natural to them on a daily basis.

Well, as you probably know, that is not the way Amazon has seen it. So, Christian Smalls is the man who did what they said could not be done. He successfully unionized.

Staten Island, New York Warehouse JFK 8 in April of this year. Nobody would have thought that he could do it. It began when he was working at Amazon and he was upset by the lack of safety measures that were being taken at the beginning of the pandemic when COVID was particularly dangerous.

He felt as a worker there as many people felt that they were not the company was not taking the measures that they needed to be taking to ensure the safety of its workers.

He was just sort of blown off. Then when he tried it to stage a walk out, they fired him illegally. And Amazon spent over $4 million on labor-busting activities.

He brought in the big guns. They brought in the so-called experts. Christian Small and the gentleman who was his partner in this effort, Derek Palmer. They raised $120,000 on a GoFundMe page. They did what, like I said, supposedly could not be done.

They really built community. They built solidarity. They took a folding table, folding chairs, set them up outside the bus stop where workers came and went every day. They had food. They sang. They famously smoked weed. And they talked. And they prayed together. And they explained to people why it was to their benefit.

Now, even as we speak, Amazon is contesting the election, saying it needs to be held again, complaining that the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, was unfair in its help that it gave to the union.

They're saying all the things you would expect them to be saying right now.

But Christian Smalls has already made history. Christian Smalls has already in live in single-handedly, practically, the labor movement in this country, along with incredible people like Sarah Nelson, so many others as well.

There are thousands of people and more who have been involved in the larger effort. Now, look at what's going on at Starbucks, what's going on at Walmart, what's starting to go on at Apple, Google.

And this is now a fire that has been lit. Labor's coming back, and it's coming back in large part because of this one young man, Christian Smalls. I hope you enjoy our interview.

Chris Smalls, thank you so much for being with me. I'm really grateful, and I have really looked forward to speaking with you.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

You are very much a man of the season. You've already made a historic difference, not only in the labor movement, but in our contemporary relationship with capitalism itself.

People will be talking about you decades and longer from now. My interest in you, what I thought about so much is why you.

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