Amazon Labor Union founder talks new book ahead of Seattle tour stop

Chris Smalls once wanted to be a rapper, which sounds like an impossible dream.

But after signing with independent record labels and chasing that dream for years, he gave it up for more steady employment. The founder of the upstart Amazon Labor Union, which won a unionization effort at the JFK8 warehouse on New York's Staten Island four years ago, now has another, much more ambitious dream.

Smalls ends his book "When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class" (out now from Pantheon) by saying he wants a true Labor Party on every ballot in the country. He writes that he wants every American worker, from Beyoncé to the crew member who refills the ice on her tours, to recognize that labor is power. He acknowledges it might be an impossible dream, but it's the fight he signed up for.

Before Smalls discusses his book at Third Place Books Lake Forest Park on June 8, he talked with The Seattle Times about his memoir, which doubles as an origin story for the Amazon Labor Union, and his fight with one of the most powerful companies on the planet. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You not only write about Amazon Labor Union's founding in this book, but your own origins. How did your early life experiences shape your eventual path to labor leader?

The skill sets of being an artist helped a lot. When I was younger, I had aspirations of being a big-time rapper, so I really worked on my craft. I started doing a lot of showcases, and I even crossed paths with A$AP Rocky before he was famous.

Then life hit me hard, and I never got to fulfill my dreams. But the skills of being an independent artist, like talking to people face to face, going to local malls and school campuses to bring people to my shows, being able to control the crowd, those all helped when it came to organizing.

You gave up your rap career to get a steady job and provide for your family. Was there a specific moment where you decided you were willing to sacrifice financial stability for a labor fight?

In the week leading up to my firing on March 30, 2020, when COVID-19 had reached mainstream news, I had already raised my concerns to HR. I remember sitting in the break room, and they're telling us to quarantine, but we're unmasked with no protection and no guidance. So I spent the entire week giving Amazon ample time to correct their wrongs. By the end of the week, they brought me into an office and basically tried setting up disciplinary action for me and saying they were going to quarantine me for exposure, even though they'd let us walk around unmasked all week. I guess you could say that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and I started to mobilize the walkout that Friday, which ultimately led to my firing.

At one point in 2020, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky penned a memo that referred to you as "not smart or articulate." You and others called it racist and a smear campaign. Did it motivate you further, knowing you were under their skin?

I remember like it was yesterday, and I always reference it because not only did David Zapolsky say that statement, but Jeff Bezos signed off on it. I'll never forget the moment that it leaked out to the media and I received a phone call from my lawyer about it. It was definitely racially charged, and it motivated me to continue advocating for workers, even though I no longer worked at the company.

It also showed how much power workers can have when you've got the CEO talking about you at a time when the company was making the most money of his entire tenure at Amazon. I definitely reflect back on that moment all the time.

The union win at your former warehouse on Staten Island was momentous. But there were other losses. Do you wish you had done anything different?

No. I don't really count wins and losses because who's to say a worker that wants to unionize their place and take on a trillion-dollar company lost? It's kind of wild to say they lost when they're sacrificing so much, risking their paycheck and job security.

I look at it as growing pains; you're not going to win every battle. We definitely didn't on our first time around. It wasn't my decision to tell workers when to take on the company at other sites; it's been a worker-led movement from the beginning.

How do you view the ALU's future?

They're in a tough situation. Amazon doesn't want to come to the table; they don't want to recognize the union still.

What the union can do right now is just focus on making sure that the building is on one common page, and that can possibly lead to a strike. The only way I see Amazon coming to the table is if we go on strike. The affiliation that I had signed with the Teamsters (in 2024) gives the Amazon Labor Union strike benefits so that they can offer the workers at the building $1,000 a week to go on strike, which I think is their strongest weapon right now.

Who do you hope reads this book?

Honestly, everybody. It's a very easy read, and because I started from my childhood, I think a lot of young people will relate to the things I went through as a teenager.

But I think anybody, young or old, can read this book. I think there's a version of everybody in my story. Most people get fired from jobs. Most people get divorced. I talk about facing evictions. I talk about living out of my car for a few months, being homeless. It's really personal, but I think it'll relate to a lot of people, mostly Americans, that go through trials and tribulations in their lives.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.