May 5, 2022

Christian Smalls to Congress: It’s Time to Stop Helping Corporations

“You forgot that the people are the ones who make these companies operate,” the Amazon Labor Union head told Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, testifies before the Senate Budget Committee.Tom Williams/AP

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At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Christian Smalls, the interim president of the Amazon Labor Union, delivered a message to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham: “You forgot that the people are the ones who make these companies operate.”

The hearing comes a month after the workers Smalls represents at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to form the company’s first union.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the head of the Senate budget committee, organized the hearing to look at whether the federal government should be awarding contracts to companies that have broken federal labor laws. The focus was on Amazon, which has racked up more than $75 million in fines for violating federal discrimination and wage laws, according to a committee press release.

“I think [Graham] suggested that a hearing like this is radical,” Sanders said after Smalls and other witnesses delivered their opening remarks. “You know what, I think he’s right. In a Congress dominated by corporate lobbyists and wealthy campaign contributors, the idea that we would actually hear from the working class of this country is in fact radical.” Sanders continued: “I make no apologies for that.”

Smalls also responded to Graham by saying that the hearing was necessary because the process for holding companies accountable has not been working. “It’s not a left or a right thing. It’s not a Democrat or Republican thing,” Smalls said. “It’s a workers issue. And we are the ones that are suffering in the corporations that you’re talking about.”

The criticism of Amazon was, at times, bipartisan. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), citing his own business experience, argued that companies that are conscientious, pay high wages, and treat workers like family hang on to their employees.

“When somebody does get out of line, when wealth gets too concentrated, when you got 150 percent turnover rates, high accident rates,” Braun said referring to Amazon, “you’re gonna have to have a medium to vent your grievance and unions vis-a-vis largely companies, [are] probably the only way you can do it.”

Earlier this week, workers at a neighboring Amazon facility voted against joining the Amazon Labor Union. The company is also trying to throw out the results of the April election won by the union. Smalls and fellow Amazon Labor Union members are focused on getting a strong contract for the more than 8,000 workers at that warehouse. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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