Unions face Amazon-sized difficulties

Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read exceptional books, the list continually updates. Today, "When the Revolution Comes" by Chris Smalls enters the Humanity in the Digital Age category.

I come from a blue-collar land — "The Land," Cleveland to be exact.

My Polish ancestors worked in factories in the U.S. starting in the 1910s, and my grandfather also worked in a factory and eventually was promoted to a supervisor. But then with my parents' generation and future ones, the mindset became all about college, snagging white-collar jobs and doing whatever we could to stay out of factories.

I point this out to say that in many ways, I am an outsider to many, many jobs in the U.S. I have not witnessed, first hand, the grind of a factory job, or the drudgery of working in a big-box store and many other positions. But to get a sense of what a job like that may entail, I highly, highly recommend When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class (2026) by Chris Smalls.

Smalls received a bunch of media coverage around the start of the pandemic when as an Amazon worker, he asked for PPE and Covid-19 protocols for a warehouse in Staten Island. Amazon's response: They fired him!

Smalls solicited media outlets, and they ran with how unjust the firing was. He became a spokesman for Amazon workers — and even workers in general. Now, he is an all-around activist, or activist for hire, as a media personality.

Shortly after his initial media attention, Smalls helped that Amazon warehouse in Staten Island unionize. On the surface, it's a shockingly amazing success story. But in his book, Smalls points out that it really isn't that successful. Staten Island has the only union anywhere in any Amazon warehouse. He was hoping for a chain reaction of unionizing. Faced with the millions of anti-union dollars Amazon spends, that appears unlikely — actually impossible — to happen.

While that whole Amazon odyssey is interesting, the strengths of the book are Smalls' excellent, page-turning writing, the realities of working paycheck to paycheck in factories and the information dispensed on what the modern-day worker faces.

Smalls writes about an ordeal he went through as a teenage worker at Target, where he was corralling carts and hit by a Mercedes that fled the scene. He incurred damaged ligaments in an ankle. Eventually, they tracked down the driver, he was awarded a minor settlement of $25,000 in which about half went to lawyers' fees. Soon, Target, which has no unions, fired him mostly because the company perceived him as a nuisance.

Smalls makes it obvious early in the book that he is not one to back down for standing up for himself or workers' rights.  He starts the book with what he did as a worker in a grocery warehouse. It was physically grueling work, and his writing had me engrossed from the get-go. He repeatedly was verbally abused in his warehouse job, and it certainly feels that likely is commonplace in jobs in which people of color do the brunt work under white supervisors. 

Smalls remains unapologetically himself and even refuses to change the way he dresses. Because he refuses to wear a suit and tie, some might not take him seriously. But he has sold me on his argument that true leadership should not have folks looking different that who they represent. His dress came to a photo-op pinnacle when he met President Biden at the White House in 2022 as he remained in his typical garb, reminding my of hip-hop star Nelly.

Amazon (1.5 million employees) is second only to Walmart (2 million) in private employers in the U.S. With these two employers completely non-unionized, except for Smalls' former warehouse in Staten Island, it is a statistical fact that unions are not even close to being seen as a priority or important in the workplace. Why?

While it might be a trap to believe that the workers don't want unions because of constant anti-union rhetoric in social media and the press, the reality is that these corporations' plan is to have their workers turn over so frequently that they are unable to unionize. In addition, neither the Republicans or Democrats really do anything to help workers or their rights. Both parties enable non-unionizing because that helps the people at the top, AKA their donors.

Smalls pulls no punches in his book by criticizing modern unions as corporations — and he is right. Of course, a "corporate" union is better than none, and he also mightily criticizes Biden and the Democratic Party. He points out that when Biden was president and the Dems controlled both the House and Senate, that zero significant pro-labor bills were passed. While I must point out that the PRO Act did pass in 2021, I'll agree that Dems — and, or course, the Republicans too — have repeatedly shown that they are pro-corporation and not whatsoever pro-worker.

When the Revolution Comes is a remarkable book that views modern work from an actual worker's perspective. The last important book that I can remember that tried to do that was Nickel and Dimed (2001) by Barbara Ehrenreich.

In that book, a relatively well off white lady took three brief jobs to see what they're really like, and then she went back to her regularly scheduled privileged life. In stark contrast, Smalls' book is raw and real and recommended for anybody who believes that actual workers deserve attention, dignity, fairness and unity.

I'm out to lunch

"Your day might only be as good as your lunch."

I say that line a lot nowadays because, who knows, it might be true. Euros seem to live by that, and we Americans don't. We typically give our lunches away to do more work. Why?

We eat at our desks. We eat alone. We rush our lunches. We take this for granted that this is how it's supposed to be. It's a tough existence — especially if our day is indeed only as good as our lunch.

I have started my third year that I've been taking my time to have a worthwhile lunch. I wish I had done this earlier, but my priorities were different. I figured why have a break in the middle of the day, when I could arrive at work later or leave earlier?

Perhaps I refused to consider the value of lunch because I didn't see many people doing that. They rushed their lunch and ate junky food; maybe I was supposed to do the same. Plus, as a teacher, you just don't have enough time to enjoy lunch. At my school, we have 30 minutes for lunch without a passing period. So, it's really just 25 minutes — that's a rushed lunch. 

I have requested the period off before lunch and haven't gotten it. Instead, I have been given one between 10:55 and 11:50 for three straight years. It's not perfect, but I can make that work for lunch.

What I like to do is go to Regional Park in Cerritos, minutes from my school but a drive, do a manmade walking path by a manmade lake and fountains (inherently manmade). I then eat my lunch at a picnic bench in the shade with pickleball courts next to me. Sometimes, I mix up the path and location to surprise myself.

Unfortunately, the heat has been so scorching this year, that I've only done a walking path once. Soon, the daily walks will be coming, and my lunchtime will get even better. Perhaps, needless to say, I do this alone because I assume other teachers do not have time for such folly.

But is it really folly?

How am I living in a world in which having a good lunch is less meaningful than doing extra work or scrolling on a phone? Plus, aren't we even more productive if we're well-rested and well-nourished? I guess it goes back to our overboard consumer culture, and I wonder if anything exemplifies that more than the NFL.

As we begin September and as the NFL season looms, I wonder: What are we doing when we watch the NFL? What are we doing when we watch the Super Bowl? I see a clear connection between the mindless lunches and mindless consumption of the NFL.

An easy argument could be made that we are simply celebrating mindless consumer culture or even celebrating frivolous violence. I don't think we reflect much on consuming the NFL. I don't think we're even aware what we're doing. It's kind of like scrolling — mindless.

I guess my point is that I want to be more aware of my consumption, especially in regards to the food and sports I devour. Perhaps ironically for the age we live in, but my digital consumption is pretty good. While I am a daily Pokemon Go player, I don't scroll or ever go on social media for more than five minutes in a day. I'll take it.

With food, though, I've eaten pretty poorly this past summer. I traveled a bit in the United States, and I guess that means the food isn't going to be too healthy. At home, I'm going to do more specific meal planning and tighten it up when it comes to eating over-processed foods.

With my sports consumption, I will remain an ardent Cleveland Guardians fanatic and watch, or listen, to them pretty much every day, whenever we can.  I'm fine with that. I got to not fall into the trap of watching the NFL just because it's on.

So, am I ready for some football? Am I ready for some action? Uh, not really. But I am ready for nice meals with real food, as opposed to food products, if that's possible. I'd like to enjoy my lunches and continue to take time with them.

As human beings, I'm pretty sure we need to eat lunch, and I say enough is enough with rushing through it. As Mae West once said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly."