Smalls has faced increasing pressure from organizers who say he’s grown distant from the day-to-day work of the union.
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Smalls led the union to a historic victory at one of Amazon’s largest warehouses last year.Since then, some in the union have said he’s seemed less interested in organizing than his own image.The union will hold leadership elections next year. Smalls will not run, he told BI.
Chris Smalls, the brash labor leader who rocketed to fame after a historic union election at one of Amazon’s biggest warehouses, will step down as president of the Amazon Labor Union next year, he confirmed to Business Insider in an email.
According to the terms of a settlement agreement with a group of organizers who had raised concerns about Smalls’ leadership, the union will hold officer elections next year, BI previously reported.
Thursday morning, Smalls told BI that he does not plan to run in those elections, casting his decision as a passing of the torch.
“It’s a worker-led union,” Smalls said in the email. “My job was to get them started” as the union’s interim president, he added, “which I’ve already accomplished.”
Other organizers characterized Smalls’ decision to step down as driven by his slim chances of winning an election.
“The membership has rejected him,” said Michelle Valentin Nieves, the union’s vice president. Smalls “has no support in the building.” If he ran for elections, she said, “he will lose. He knows it.”
Smalls has faced increasing criticism from Amazon Labor Union organizers in the past year, many of whom charge that he has been absent from worker organizing efforts as Amazon seeks to stall progress on a contract by dragging the union into protracted legal battles. Smalls also pushed through an amended union constitution that forestalled officer elections until after a contract was signed, which could have kept him in the role of president for years.
Last December, a group of organizers formally split with Smalls, forming the ALU Democratic Reform Caucus. The Reform Caucus sued the main body of the Amazon Labor Union demanding elections. The lawsuit settled Friday with an agreement to hold elections next year.
The Reform Caucus has continued to organize workers in the Amazon warehouse, holding a walkout in October demanding higher wages and greater accommodations for pregnant workers.