Chris Smalls

Biography

Christian Smalls is an American labor organizer known for his role in leading Amazon worker organization in Staten Island, a borough in New York City. He is the president and founder of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) since 2021.

Smalls grew up in New Jersey and pursued a career as a rapper, touring briefly with Meek Mill, but gave this up to support his children by working in the service industry and in warehouses. He joined Amazon in 2015.

On March 30, 2020, Smalls organized a walkout to protest what he said was a lack of proper safety protocols around COVID-19 exposures at the Staten Island warehouse he worked at, Amazon JFK8. He was terminated the same day for what the company stated was...