Here in New York, labor leaders and activists gathered in Brooklyn Saturday to denounce Amazon’s union-busting tactics and to show support for union drives by Amazon and Starbucks workers around the country. Activists also called out the targeting of Black organizers. Last week, the NYPD arrested African American Amazon union leader Chris Smalls and two warehouse workers for allegedly trespassing. Smalls was fired by Amazon in 2020 after organizing against unsafe conditions during the pandemic but has continued leading unionization efforts. This is Brett Daniels, another of the Amazon workers arrested last week.
Brett Daniels: “The very next day for my shift, I was retaliated against and given my first written warning by HR. Yeah, so we clearly saw that as retaliation, and we’re traumatized. We’re honestly traumatized from this. And it’s like it’s so normalized. It’s normalized for the cops to be at our workplace.”