Last month, Amazon Labor Union President Christian Smalls outwitted Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his own show. On Thursday, Smalls once again successfully jousted with a prominent conservative. This time he effectively countered Sen. Lindsey Graham’s inane defense of Amazon’s business practices during a Senate hearing. In the process, Smalls made yet another powerful case for why organized labor is essential to realizing freedom in America.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, held a hearing intended to challenge Amazon’s status as a major contractor for the U.S. government because of its brutal labor practices.
At the hearing’s opening, Graham, R-S.C., the ranking member on the committee, railed against the very idea of the hearing. “This is very dangerous,” Graham said. “You can have oversight hearings all you like, but you’ve determined Amazon is a piece of crap company. That’s your political bias.”
The most powerful remarks came when Smalls linked the idea of labor unions to freedom.
“Every time I turn around, you’re having a hearing about ‘anybody who makes money is bad,’” Graham told Sanders at another point.
But Smalls, a fired Amazon employee who led the first successful effort to unionize one of its warehouses, dodged Graham’s distraction tactics and pointed out that the success of a company cannot be separated from its workers.
Smalls began his opening statement by addressing Graham.
“You forgot that the people are the ones who make these companies operate, and that we’re not protected,” he said. “And that the process for when we hold these companies accountable is not working for us, then that’s the reason why we’re here today. That’s the reason why I’m here to represent the workers who make these companies go.”
Christian Smalls, president of Amazon Labor Union addressing Sen. Lindsey Graham:
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 5, 2022
“I want to address Mr. Graham. It sounds like you were talking about more of the companies & the businesses in your speech but you forgot the people are the ones who make these companies operate.” pic.twitter.com/YaGVa2wRvr
During his remarks, Smalls pointed out how Amazon has persistently broken the law in its attempt to squash unionization efforts by doing things such as firing organizing workers. (Amazon has denied these accusations even after, for example, a judge ruled that it must reinstate a fired worker.) Smalls also said corporations like Amazon use the slowness of the legal process to their advantage when trying to intimidate workers. “They know that breaking the law won’t be resolved during election campaigns,” Smalls said. Smalls himself was fired after organizing a walkout for safer working conditions in the early stages of the pandemic. (Amazon said Smalls violated social distancing protocols.)
Smalls made his case even stronger when he pivoted from his response to Graham to a broader call for a working-class movement that pierces through political polarization.









