Here in New York, employees of the retail giant Amazon have voted to join a union, in a historic victory for organized labor. Workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island overcame a multimillion-dollar union-busting campaign and voted decisively in favor of joining the newly formed Amazon Labor Union. The effort was led by Christian Smalls, who was fired by Amazon in 2020 after he organized a strike demanding better worker protections at the start of the pandemic. Smalls is now interim president of the Amazon Labor Union.

Christian Smalls: “Well, I can tell you now: We got the jugular. We went for the jugular, and we went for the top dog, because we want every other industry, every other business to know that things has changed. We’re going to unionize; we’re not going to quit our jobs anymore. And, you know, this is a prime example of the power that people have when they come together.”