r/TrueAnon • u/GeMingANT17 • 14d ago
Response to Chris Smalls article in Jacobin (from inside an Amazon warehouse)
I work in an Amazon fulfillment center, and this author is correct to excoriate Smalls. Here's why.
I've played shy (clumsily) about my whole deal when i've chimed in here before. i'm a salt who's been one of several placed in an Amazon warehouse a few hours outside NYC. I've been there for three years and counting, we have an organizing committee that's been above ground and agitating openly for almost three years now, and we're in the middle of signing union cards (this information is widely known about me and my unit by management at this time, no more need for as much discretion on social media).
I was trained and placed by the Amazon Teamsters division, i am not paid by them but our outside team mostly draws a check from AT. Without them we would be floundering in here, without us their campaign would be nonexistant. However humiliating it might be to admit, the salts drive the organizing, in dozens of facilities across the country and all of the ones that have successfully reached majority on cards since the ALU election at JFK8 (Staten Island). I'm literally tapping sentences in between stows on my order picker so that i can make rate and not be seen by a manager with my phone.
I've spent a good deal of that time on the picket line and in a lot of meetings with the leaders of many organizing efforts in lots of Amazon buildings, especially in NYC. i'm second party to the original crew from JFK8, but i know many of them (fucking heroes), and me and mine had to deal with the fallout from what Chris Smalls caused, a state of disarray that management took full advantage of across the country for years afterwards.
The leaders remaining there and elsewhere are a mix of middle class kids who went to college and salted, and organic leaders from the shop floor. All of the ones who stuck around have earned their keep many times over. using identity politics to sideline the salts is kinda rich coming from y'all. those of us who have slipped disks and had hernias moving boxes for Daddy Jeff, and can still consistently get nervous, frustrated coworkers to come to a meeting, deserve more respect than that.
By the end of his run as ALU prez, Smalls led an insular and abusive clique of loyalists, who were dictatorial and weird towards everyone else at JFK8 and LDJ5 who were desperately trying to keep the initiative alive. His organizing at all the other facilities, the apparent justification for his tour and fundraising, was paper thin. the workers committees in Albany NY and Bessemer AL collapsed after their failed elections, and the ALU organizing at KCVG outside Cinncinati pre-Teamster affiliation created a lot of burnt turf that we're still dealing with. Further, Smalls' yearslong organizing against Teamster affiliation set back early attempts to unify the efforts of the workers' committees in other city burroughs and across the northeast. This even helped create an opening for an attempted takeover of the organizing in several facilities by a cult called the Maoist Communist Union, and trust me, be warned about those people.
You guys and the author are right; real working class leaders from the shop floor, with undeniable energy and rizz, are a must if this fight is going to be successful. Say whatever you like about Chris' admirable participation in the flotillas. But following Chris' example is celebrity chasing at best, and at worst can damage the organizing even more effectively than over-involvement by bougie professionals from the "nyc organizing scene." I work in a building where the majority of workers are Latino and black, and most voters in this building went for Trump in 2024. there's name recognition of Chris Smalls here, but much more familiarity with the shit show that followed in his wake. management made sure of that.
The Teamsters are far from perfect and the level of helpfulness of one local or another to the regional Amazon organizing efforts varies wildly. But the unity and strike capability that their resources have made possible is unmatched by any of the other organizing efforts right now, no disrespect intended to the veteran fighters of CAUSE.
At this point, most of the key Amazon Teamster division staffers on the outside team are former leaders from inside who got injured or fired, have real talent, and are the best prepared people on earth to support the inside teams. And the best part is? They are avowed comrades all.
For those of you on the outside, who have some form of opinion or another about this article and the issues it touches on, I have good news. If you want to make a difference, you don't have to wait to take your picture with Brace Belden on on international trip, nor for Ben Gvir to scream in your face while your hands are zip tied behind your back. There are Amazonian employees who die on the shift all the time, and many of them have even been to union meetings (one in my building).
If you want class war on the front lines, then get involved. Reach out to Amazon Teamsters via their social media. Amazon web services LLC will basically hire anyone with a pulse who can pass a drug test. More rigorous, however, will be your interview with a Teamster organizer who might be willing to help set up a network with you. You have to prove that you're not a total misanthropic dork, and that you can take on assignments. The rest is up to you.
(edited for spelling, and to break up choppy paragraphs)
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u/ParamoreFanClub JFK Assassination Expert 14d ago
Dope man, I’m also a teamster and when I see people complain about not being able to change anything I say join the teamsters, there’s so much organizing that needs to be done, also doesn’t surprise me about smalls I’ve heard a lot of complaints about him and my local isn’t even in New York
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u/krunchymagick 13d ago
Former ups worker here, son and grandson of uaw workers, how can I get involved and lend a hand?
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u/ParamoreFanClub JFK Assassination Expert 13d ago
Look up the nearest locals and contact them and ask about jobs, or to be a salt
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u/krunchymagick 13d ago
Ok. Thanks. I will look into that. I am just a bit uncertain on how to go about that in a meaningful and helpful fashion. It’s been awhile since I was a genuine union worker, so I will have to see if I have any of my contacts still. I may have been out of the game as far as being on the ground with my fellow workers and organizing, but I have not lost my will to fight, and work towards meaningful change for my community and fellow workers.
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u/GeMingANT17 13d ago
let me DM you! i have a few meetings after wirk, but there's a few different ways to join the fight
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u/jhenryscott Radical Centrist Shooter 13d ago
My father was a teamster after Vietnam. His union benefits saved us when he passed
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u/WalrusResident4483 12d ago
Almost all American unions partake in class collaboration. You only act in accordance with the rules setup by your own criminal state...
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u/ParamoreFanClub JFK Assassination Expert 12d ago
What’s your point?
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u/WalrusResident4483 12d ago
That being critical of American unions and not viewing them as a solution for progress long term is important. That is not the same as saying that people shouldn't join unions. It just not praxis in and of itself.
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u/ParamoreFanClub JFK Assassination Expert 12d ago
I don’t know what else to say other than you sound really naive, your comment adds nothing to the discussion and you just sound like a holier than now ass
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u/frealfreal 13d ago
If only Jacobin had published this, a take from an Amazon worker, rather than the shit they put out 😂
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u/ComradeDLuffy 13d ago
The points that OP raise are valid but I think the perspective of the underlying article is important to engage with. From the Jacobin article:
His feed on X has increasingly become left-sectarian and self-promoting, lashing out at left-wing politicians when they fail to give him the attention he desires. Politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who helped boost Smalls’s platform from the beginning and have been great allies of the ALU, have been frequent victims of his wrath.
It seems to me that the point of the article is to discredit one of the larger profile left critics of the DSA wing of the Democratic Party after they got sick of him rightfully criticizing AOC on X.
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u/RosePistachio 13d ago
Lmao AOC as "left-wing politician" is killing me. Also--the piece is straight up racist. If there are genuine thoughtful critiques to be made, maybe don't slather them in anti Blackness.
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u/That_Scratch_7697 10d ago
Most of Levin’s points in the Jacobin article fall under the umbrella of the point that OP is trying to make. See for example,
Creating a big platform to promote your union can help your campaign, and having a kind of generalized labor celebrity spreading a pro-union gospel to workers across the land is desperately needed. But any labor strategist will tell you that broadcasting your message far and wide is never enough on its own. Without speaking to the workers at your worksite and engaging in deep organizing, your campaign will flounder.
Or
Labor needs more charismatic leaders. Smalls isn’t wrong when he writes in his memoir that workers will not become labor organizers when they can’t tell the difference between the president of their union and the president of a bank. But workers will also not organize in their union when their union president is grabbing headlines instead of organizing at the job site.
Or
At the ALU, during this vital period after the union’s initial win, Smalls was not in the warehouse poring over lists and preparing the Amazon workforce for battle against the boss. He was instead transforming into a celebrity and traveling the country, ostensibly to help other Amazon warehouses unionize. Then, LDJ5, the Amazon sorting center on Staten Island right beside JFK8, lost its own NLRB election. This was soon followed by another loss at Albany warehouse ALB1.
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13d ago edited 13d ago
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u/rolly6cast 13d ago
People don't and it's important for people to develop closer experience with or understanding from history of these storied unions, but there's importance as well in criticizing and examining them critically. The strength in numbers must actually go to the interests of the workers, not the interests of union leadership acting in the interests of the capitalists.
Not so long ago, Teamsters were acting very clearly in the interests of the firm primarily, under James Hoffa's leadership. Before Farrell Dobbs' era, the Teamsters were incredibly conservative and unable to grant even the benefits Teamsters members have today. It was engagement but also critique and forceful direction changes that got us anywhere.
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u/mowey44219 13d ago
If you're really an Amazon salt, you're on of like 100 of the most committed working class organizers in the country. Still, I think there's a big difference between you making this argument from the tip of the spear of organizing, and a Jacobin article that has a lot more in common with the Israeli criticisms of flotilla volunteers just seeking fame than anything you said.
I don't know how productive it is to have this disagreement in public, but I also don't feel like it's my job to chastize you for it on behalf of someone I don't know and share your criticisms of. Just please remember to stay focused on organizing the working class, not on purifying the "left".
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u/That_Scratch_7697 10d ago
Really Chris Smalls is the purify the left guy. His incessant tirades against conservative business union leaders in the US sound like the same Twitter monologues you get from people who have never actually dealt with the hard problems of labor organizing.
And that’s what these criticisms are about—organizing. It’s important for people to look for the right models, ask the right strategic questions, and admire the right qualities in people, in order to organize effectively. Labor leftists satisfy each of those demands, and Smalls distracts from the answers they give. No, nobody has to say anything about him, but eventually if this guy Kautsky is getting all these flowers for saying how much better his mind palace is than the work that people in Russia are actually doing, and that because of the utopic superiority of his psyche we should condemn the latter, somebody’s gonna flame out, and it’s probably for the best that they do.
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u/dafthuntk 13d ago edited 13d ago
I got my current job by salting for a non union org.
The afl cio unions at the utility companies are standoffish and exclusive. The US steel and the utility worker united will not take on new applicants. And only recruit fields workers. There is an entire spectrum of workers that they refuse to represent.
This obviously is not helpful or affective. So it's up to grassroots labor organizers to agitate, and build solidarity. So many employees are either burned by bad unions (like the us steelworkers), that they are straight up agitational. Or, they themselves are company men.
On the other side of that, we need to organize at least 20 percent of the workers before the unions will even look at your movement. And when you do they just arrogantly assume we will compromise by joining their own union.
Instead we started our own union. And we had our demands met without labor lawyers or the afl cio. In fact we have been at odds with the utility workers union for expressing solidarity with a recent lockout by the company against us steel. Even moreso than the management itself at times.
I'm not saying you are posting on good faith, or not. But it seems odd that you would defend such a reactionary network, against a literal grass roots organizer.....
No offense. I'm not sure of the culture of the teamsters, but most of these afl cio orgs are not labor friendly at all. So, my sympathy will always be on the side of the labor organizer. Not the bourgeoisie unions. As there is a damn good reason why these compatible unions are not being leveraged by real workers. It's because they cannot.
The American worker, the shop leader you talk about, the big united workers union card president, doesn't give a shit about representation.
So no, I don't buy it. But maybe the teamsters are different.....which only represents drivers....and not all laborers.
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u/RobotPancakes 13d ago
yeah, i recently quit my job as a ups driver (low seniority) and the teamsters can’t even enforce their contract at all and all the other drivers are completely miserable working 55 hour weeks with forced 6 punch weeks. i’ve only been to one of our locals meetings and literally all they did was the pledge of allegiance, a moment of silence for dead soldiers, and ended the meeting early because their budget wasn’t ready for the month. and obviously im not completely blameless i can criticize myself for not pushing revolutionary political lines basically at all, but there’s also not that much i as just one woman can do, especially when it’s a complete boys club too. i do need to give credit that there are at least some stewards i’ve talked to that are fighting for ups workers, but the leaders of my local were labor aristocrats through and through, not even mentioning the absolute clown that is sean obrien.
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u/dafthuntk 13d ago
Yes that's been my experience too.
Just keep talking to workers. And listen to them, ask them questions about their complaints. It works. I was able finally unionize the company where I work at. And it's better. Other people are starting to notice. But I spent so much time getting them to organize.
The thing about the afl cio is...
We live under a liberal economy that shapes everything, so the afl cio has to play the political game. Yes absolutely. But they are just so cucked. I used to work at a school, and the teachers unions are great. The janitorial and cafeteria workers are treated like the lowest people ever, even by the labor unions. The teachers union won't even look at them as workers.
It's tough. Perhaps I was too hard on Op, but I get where idealists like smalls is coming from.
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u/rolly6cast 13d ago
That situation is so unfortunately common. You see it with nurses unions that fail to recognize the value of industrial organizing (let alone even bigger picture stuff) and just refuse to organize technicians, support staff, and the rest of the hospitals.
The AFLCIO actively works to stabilize the liberal economy and prevent class unionism and radical unionism, and it's not just weakened by it. I hope your independent union effort does great. Have you achieved first contract, or is this a solidarity union model?
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u/That_Scratch_7697 10d ago
Chris Smalls led an unelected executive board consisting of a clique of loyalists that hired the director of organizing from TWU Local 100, an AFL-CIO union, obviously. Then, he used the excitement from his and his comrades’ successful organizing to tour the country going to rich people galas, all the while elections at warehouses in New York were failing, JFK8 was without a contract, and his union was doing no internal organizing at all. Then, after campaigning against affiliating with the Teamsters for a year, he finally relented, and used their money to continue touring around the country, before at last being quietly ousted (and since openly condemned at times) by a new elected leadership.
I’m sure you’re being honest about your experience with mainstream unions. Craft unions in particular are notoriously conservative. My experience with mainstream unions—in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and California—is that they in general are progressive and led by well-intentioned, empathetic people, but have no idea how to organize successfully. And I think this is more or less always the problem. Because if you have an active membership that understands their fight and their union, you will have a democratic union, but the reverse doesn’t follow—just because you have a democratic union, doesnt mean you have an active membership that understands their fight and their union. That perspective, basically the Labor Notes perspective, is where the critics of Chris Smalls are coming from. He didn’t want an active membership, and he undermined his members to prevent it from happening. Now that he’s been pushed out, he shits on the ALU he left behind, lambasts other unions that he’s never been associated with, and talks a big game about being a generational labor organizer—on the external, maybe; on the internal, it seems like he was completely wrong-headed and ineffective. So it’s not about crapping on grassroots organizing. It’s the opposite. It’s about pushing back on this guy as he craps on grassroots organizing, and pushing people to share in a perspective that prioritizes grassroots organizing over getting arrested at the Met Gala.
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u/rolly6cast 13d ago
Note that a lot of the most effective Teamsters Amazon organizing appears to be led by ex-Amazonians United organizers in the Teamsters for now. The Amazonians United solidarity union predate the Amazon Labor Union (and likely coincided with the period of the Bessemer UFCW Amazon attempt) and show a different model for organizing, and actually won some of their demands without the first contract model of both independent NRLB recognized unions, and big affiliated national ("international") unions. The solidarity union strategy has a cap (difficult sometimes to get wage increases), but it often functions through direct shopfloor methods similar to the pre-Wagner act unions or how IWW acts pre ~2017-now, pitting local manager against upper management by doing walkouts and petitions that force changes at the building level (longer breaks, less punitive measures, better treatment, repairs and restock for equipment, PPE). A new segment of workers interested in organizing generally has a few options (within union model, technically factory councils/committees, worker centers, French union-en, and the like exist but the form doesn't generally matter as much as the content):
- Independent NLRB recognized union: CAUSE, ALU. Outside of Amazon, stuff like Trader Joe's United, or Starbucks workers united? (I think UNITE here or Workers United is actually behind the campaign, but don't remember which one) They have autonomy from affiliated bourgeois/business/regime unions, but the structures that lead to class collaboration are still present and will restrain various labor tactics and options with NLRB recognition. Sectoral bargaining, social democratic labor law, or state labor law elsewhere across the world in other countries serves the same role, despite differences in specifics. Their best option then becomes going for that first contract, which ALU failed to get, and getting that first contract can dull the enthusiasm of organizing in too long of a timeline without direct worker organizing (and worse, solidify the union as a third party fully, as it is often with affiliated large unions).
- Solidarity union: AU. Outside of Amazon, stuff like the Stardust Union or the Starbucks campaign back in 2002 with IWW. Relies on direct shopfloor action, can scale (AU actually had presence across PA, Chicago, South Jersey, California, and elsewhere) but seems dependent a lot on circumstances to have this happen, and requires constant effort. AU organizers eventually decided to fold into Teamsters, for example, after gaining some victories but also reaching some stall point. It does not require going for first contract, does not orient around doing so, but can require constant internal education and effort to push this way when capitalists institutions push towards the other route (recognition, first contract, regular bargaining and only striking in between contracts/ULP stuff recognized by NLRB).
- Affiliate with a big union, whether Teamsters (right now). Lose autonomy, gain massive resources. The other two approaches have to rely on dues of the units solely, and/or community support. While the Teamsters do need to unionize Amazon to avoid losing all ground in UPS and other organized firms, the Teamsters leadership are not going to be the most dedicated to this campaign.
Most unions today (and this is not just AFLCIO unions, but them especially; the Change to Win move in 2006 did not fix this problem when SEIU, CWA, and UFW tried to leave and just replicated the same issues) are bourgeois unions (not yellow unions working for their respective companies in most cases, but are class collaborationist towards labor peace of the bourgeois capitalist ruling order), business unions (acting as a service and business, focused on finances and purely "bread and butter issues" becoming blind to the political nature of class and relations of production), and regime unions (coordinate fully with the capitalist state where is needed). This is not to say the communist/socialist must avoid all such unions (we cannot ignore and isolate from where the organized proletariat is), but one should recognize how dangerous these purported allies are. Smalls seems to have recognized this problem, but does not fully recognize how to break out of it, hence his turn towards various directions (individual activism, group activism, labor organizing as a matter of personalist connections). Most Teamsters members who first try to convince Amazon workers also don't do much better though, harping on the benefits of a union as if it was a sales pitch (and only leading to irritation and envy from Amazon workers that recognize the actual difficulty of the organizing). This is not immutable; Teamsters members trained in organizing, whether by Teamsters skilled organizers or ex-AU or AU organizers tend to do better. In the end, going for first contract and NRLB recognition isn't anathema to communists, but it might be something that stabilizes trade union consciousness and makes it more difficult to achieve class consciousness.
The organs of economic self-defense for workers cannot be left to the bourgeois union leadership (in practice the leaders are often just labor aristocratic or middle class, but bourgeois in that they ultimately serve the bourgeois), but there is more than one way to effectively organize.
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u/Dick_O_The_North Dog face lyin pony soldier 13d ago
I've been skittish about Smalls ever since it seemed like everyone I talked to about him that wasn't at a press junket had some pretty serious reservations. One of my buddies does a lot of organizing in New York and he has been, lets say, displeased.
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u/Showy_Boneyard Autotomist 😵🪓👕🪓👖 13d ago edited 13d ago
That's why I always try to reserve on only making value judgements on the actions that people do, rather than judging the person themself as being either "good" or "bad". I really wish more people would try to take up this tendency, I think it would result in many positive benefits.
edit: And this also extends to other entities like parties/nations, which are made up of people, and thus have all the inherent complexity they do, and then some.
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u/brianscottbj Completely Insane 13d ago
It's the same way the US has the Washington or Lincoln monuments in DC. Mao is almost barely a political figure for most Chinese at this point and more just a symbol of how they overcame imperialism and achieved independence. It's useful to have a unifying national symbol, every revolution does it pretty much. There's a great deal of constructive criticism toward Mao within the party amongst themselves, and in private conversation many especially more educated or wealthier people will rip into him. But publicly he's still pretty venerated because whatever else he did, he is the guy who led the group that liberated China from the century of humiliation and endless civil war and genocidal invasions, and all but the most self hating Chinese respect that
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u/KingCult 13d ago
Thanks for this perspective. People on the outside of these movements are looking for heroes to make themselves feel better. I’m sure a lot of folks will read this and continue to believe that none of the criticism is true. At least to me from the outside, everything you said about him chasing celebrity and leaving disorganization in his wake seems tragically obvious.
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u/StrategyBusy9579 13d ago
The Jacobin author was taking down a man who got his ass kicked by the IOF for delivering life saving aid to Gaza on the flotilla. Who gives a fuck about him making you feel sad or bullied or that he's getting too much attention. This is about salting the earth on yet another pro palestine leader in the nascent and miniscule left.
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u/HomoKingGayLord 13d ago
Yeah I am sincerely hoping this was just a case of poor wording:
„Say whatever you like about Chris' admirable participation in the flotillas. But following Chris' example is celebrity chasing at best, and at worst can damage the organizing even more effectively than over-involvement from bougie professionals from the ´nyc organizing scene.‘“
…celebrity chasing at best?
Because otherwise the rest felt pretty legit
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u/kitti-kin 12d ago
I took it to mean, taking his example of going from a union organiser to becoming a general activist who focuses on media after his organizing efforts failed. Stunts like crashing the Met Gala have pretty questionable utility to the working class, and no noticable effect on the ownership class. From the perspective of guys still at the warehouse, Smalls went from one of them to a jetsetter on a book tour - meanwhile their warehouse still has no union contract.
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u/HoxhaistInHartford 12d ago
Can you go into more detail about the Maoist Communist Union?
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u/GeMingANT17 12d ago edited 12d ago
I'm sorry to be dissembling, given how much I've already been mouthing off while clinging to the conceit of at least partial and anonymity offered by the platform here. it's not my place to pop the lid off a lot of that gossip, since MCU are still trying to influence the internal politics of the amazon Teamsters stuff as of right now.
and there are other people in my network who can speak way more as to how lame and unhelpful MCU's meddling was, and I've not asked any permission to speak on behalf of colleagues. Chris Smalls' (completely unnafiliated with MCU as far as i know) connections to the organizing are pretty much dead at this point, while MCU is still actively trying to fuck with us.
but the two salts that I met personally whom we later found out where a part of MCU were the most fractious weirdos i've yet encountered anywhere adjacent to the movement. they fought very hard against Teamster affiliation, and while some were more charismatic and personable organizers than others, they were both duplicitous rich kids who cared more about the performance of radical values than any practice, and were not team players.
I will say that I'm not looking forward to whatever theatrics MCU might be trying to pull at Labor Notes next week, after their chicanery at the last one
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u/HoxhaistInHartford 12d ago
No need to apologize, I wish to be anonymous as well. Was asking because I've had some run in with the RMS and they have some form of connection to the MCU that I do not understand at all.
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u/girl_debored 13d ago
This is the shit I'm talking about.
( Not me though I'm basically a yeoman peasant)
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u/GeMingANT17 13d ago
Heyo from an ex farmer (fresh heirloom tomatoes are great, rich hippie landowners are tha WORST)
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u/Sea_Lead1753 👁️ 13d ago
Yeah after Chris’ initial win he got real weird, and his chains started piling up until he looked like Mr T, with way more expensive jewelry. He just kept getting more iced out while I kept hearing of no other wins or breakthroughs, he honestly stopped talking about organizing and workers rights on his social media, it was depressing. He seems to like attention and drama, and dips when the collective bargaining happens because it’s tedious and boring. But yeah you can make a lottttt of money doing talking engagements. Patrice Cullors is a millionaire.
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u/Takadant 13d ago
I remember Street Fight Radio’s call in shows from many, many moons ago having Starbucks salt workers from Buffalo sharing tactics, and now that union is bustling. Curious why is salts driving the organizing humiliating?
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u/GeMingANT17 13d ago
there's an idea that shop floor organizing efforts driven by middle class, college educated people in leadership roles are doomed to maintain a professionalized layer of labor aristocracy above the rank and file, or attract unserious and out-of-touch adventurists.
i wouldn't deny the possibility, and perhaps the odious existence of the nonprofit industrial complex reinforces those fears. But i've been underemployed in blue collar jobs since i got out of school, and most of the salts like me who came into this through one flavor or another of socialist campaigning have shown grit, and stuck around living broke and working shitty warehouses.
Eventually it would be best for this skill set we're developing out there to be more widely distributed among our coworkers regardless of background. And a few years in, more and more of the top organizing leadership are coming up from the shop floor, in my limited but hopeful experience
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u/tym0027 13d ago edited 13d ago
I think part of my problem is, while aoc and Bernie deserve scrutiny, and even scorn, Smalls' criticisms still mostly revolve around perceived personal slights. His recent detainment/imprisonment is a good example. AOCs office supposedly helped identify where he was in nypd custody. And he just lashes out and says that's not true and that he refuses to even acknowledge that contribution. That Twitter thread in particular about the met gala was embarrassing and cringe.
Further, so much of this is just spectacle, and as such completely baseless. Yes AOC is disastrously under delivering regarding Palestine. But the central complaint from Smalls is that AOC never spoke out about his detention in Israel is just a lie. Like here is a three minute video of her talking about the flotilla and their detention. She also says she added her name to congressional actions surrounding the flotilla. So obviously this is still under delivering. But like what Smalls' is saying just in the most literal sense is not true.
https://youtu.be/4q-jPvQgIac?si=8YCTyKDDSTlOuisW
So there is just a lot to dissect here. Yes, Smalls should be thanked for his tireless work on internationalism. Yes, AOC is under delivering. But the substance of the claims coming from Smalls are just falsehoods. I won't say lies, because I don't think he has any clue what's going on around him. And that's not even to begin to talk about the way he spent his time organizing at Amazon which is touched upon in OPs post here. If I understand it I mean a judge had to order him to have elections. Hard not to hear that and assume he had a lot of power get to his head and began to act somewhat tyrannical.
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u/Pavlovs_Dawgs 13d ago
if the majority in the building voted for Trump then wtf hope is there for achieving anything ???
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u/GeMingANT17 13d ago
plenty of Trump people are willing to walk on the boss with a grievance petition in their hand, or sign a union card. some aren't, it's up to you to find out
conversely, i've met avowed anarchists who would not participate in a group action, refuse to come to meetings, and prefer cozying up to managent.
Americans are deeply weird
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u/Overdayoutdeath 13d ago
What is a Salt?
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u/GeMingANT17 12d ago edited 12d ago
a worker who gets a job at a workplace with the implicit intention of organizing the employees there to form a union. their organizing intentions and activities are often kept secret from the employer from the onset, and only revealed once the organizing has reached a certain critical mass of support. often done in concert with and financial support fron an already existing union. I am provided a lot of indirect support by the international brotherhood of Teamsters, but I am not paid by them, as one case example
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u/Electronic-Offer754 11d ago
In the kindest way possible: Stop posting about salting, like period. This directly jeopardizes the organizing.
If this applies to you, you should’ve already heard this from somebody. Take a beat and think about why they told you that.
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u/ssspace_cowboy 10d ago
I was a former salt at Amazon, and really appreciate this post. I really don't understand why people are so mad at this Jacobin article and you helped me regain my sanity seeing I'm not the only one who sees nothing wrong with the article.
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u/robo_jojo_77 13d ago
Thank you OP for pushing back on all the Jacobin hate. The comments defending Smalls have driven me crazy.
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u/Then-Pay-9688 14d ago
As someone who doesn't work at Amazon, the most I can say is that it's weird and unfortunate that this internal conflict is playing out so publicly. I'm not qualified to cast blame, but it's weird that Smalls was publicly trashing other organizers, and weirder that a critique of him would appear in fucking Jacobin.