Christian Smalls, an Amazon Labor Union organizer, would want to thank Jeff Bezos for traveling into space.
The former Amazon employee was the driving force behind the first successful attempt to unionize an Amazon warehouse, which was confirmed after the National Labor Relations Board finished tallying votes on Friday.
“To the first Amazon union in history,” Smalls shouted as he popped a bottle of champagne outside the NLRB offices in Brooklyn. The JFK8 warehouse is located on Staten Island, New York.
“We want to congratulate Jeff Bezos for traveling to space because we were signing people up while he was up there,” Smalls added. “We were out here obtaining autographs,” says the narrator.
Smalls was referring to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ July voyage with his Blue Origin space business.
After the flight, Bezos remarked, “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this.”
The National Labor Relations Board finished counting votes on Friday morning. Workers voted 2654 in favor of joining the Amazon Labor Union, which Smalls created, and 2131 against it. On Staten Island, the ALU is working to unionize another warehouse, which will vote in the coming weeks.
Amazon has battled hard to prevent its warehouses from becoming unionized. The company said in a blog post that it was “disappointed” by Friday’s vote and that it is considering filing an election-related complaint with a federal labor panel.