 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch and our special May Day series where we talk to labour organisers and representatives of trade unions across the world. Today we have a very special guest, Chris Malls, who was an employee of the Amazon facility in State and Island, but was terminated last month shortly after he raised very serious concerns about the health of the employees and the precautions Amazon was supposed to take but was clearly not Now Chris has become one of the faces of a major protest that is scheduled to take place on May 1st where employees of a wide variety of companies, Amazon, FedEx, Instacart, are set to walk out from their workplaces demanding on a wide variety of demands. Chris, thank you so much for talking to us. Absolutely, thank you for having me. So could you first talk about what was the origin of this walkout protest because this has become quite a big protest, major companies across the world, their employees are involved in this. So could you tell us a bit about the organizing that went around it and what are the key demands? Absolutely, thank you for having me. Yeah, you know, for the last couple of weeks we've seen a number of different protests and strikes all across the country regarding health and safety concerns. After my termination, my first walkout a month ago, there's been other buildings and other people, other employees from other companies that's been willing to speak up on this matter. So what I decided to do was form an alliance between all these companies, all these entities because we all have one common goal. We put aside who we work for because we all have one common goal to protect our health and our safety. So I've been orchestrating these conference calls every week, formulating a plan to that led to May 1, which is tomorrow's walkout. And that's what we've been doing. We're just mobilizing to our voices are heard and our demands are met. Our demands are simple. We just want to be retro paid for all the unpaid time that we were forced to use the entire month of March. We want every building that has a case and it to be shut down and professionally sanitized. We want the companies to be honest and transparent at all times, how many cases are in these buildings. And most importantly, we want to have our PPE provided at all times and sanitation items provided at all times by the company and for the company to make sure that they're doing they follow through with this. So that's pretty much that. And Chris, let's talk a bit about Amazon itself. So you've been working, you were working with Amazon from 2015 and you were actually supervising quite a few employees as well. So could you take us to what happened when you raised some of these concerns and what was the response of the management? Yeah, when I started to raise concerns, it was pretty much no response, you know, it was business as usual. At the time, when I first started, there was no confirmed cases in the building where I worked. So they were really nonchalant about it. That forced me to send out emails to the health department, to the CDC department, to the state government of New York department. When I didn't receive responses, that's when I started to mobilize a walkout. But what led up to that is the fact that I sat in a building for an entire week starting on March 24 off the clock on my own free will, raising my concerns to the general manager's office every single day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, March 28, that's Saturday, the day they quarantine me. I sat in the cafeteria for eight hours a day with a number of associates every single day, voicing my concerns, because we were working or exposed to somebody who tested positive. When we didn't get any answers and they kept giving us a bunch of excuses, that's when I started to take further action. In the interim period, there have been many more cases of people resigning as well of Amazon taking further action. And I think the latest numbers collected by independent sources show that there are over 600 cases in various Amazon facilities. You have put out a tweet today regarding that. So could you talk a bit about, at the national level, what has been the company's response also? Because we do know that Amazon executive discussed your case, and they prepared points to assassinate your character, to talk ill about you, and said that we'll go for a standard response. Right. Yeah, that's the thing. If I wasn't telling the truth, that meeting that they were talking about me would have never existed. But we all know what type of people they are now. They've been exposed, and it's not good. It looks bad on the end, and it's a shame. They don't care about employees' health and safety. They rather worry about me, Christian Smalls. But it's never going to be Amazon versus Christian Smalls. It's going to be Amazon versus the people. That's why more people are starting to speak up. That's why there's been more strikes and walkouts over the past couple of weeks. In response to companies, they've been retaliating against everybody that speak up, and they've been terminating them. But that's not the right response, and that's why we continue to mobilize, and we're going to do that again tomorrow on May 1st. And I also understand that the leave that was being granted over the past two months during the pandemic, it is being closed. That policy is being ended on April 30th. So could you talk a bit about that? Yeah, I think that's just a way of them getting people to come to work tomorrow because they probably caught wind of what we were doing. But that's just another thing that makes them look bad because we're still in the middle of a pandemic over here. A lot of people don't have any options to result to. So you're putting more people at risk by forcing them to come back to work, and you're not giving them a solution as far as safety. So yeah, all we're doing is beating the demands of Jeff Bezos and his pockets. They're putting a price on people's heads, and that's not fair to us. And that's the reason why we continue to mobilize. Right. And also in terms of, could you talk a bit about what your experience has been with Amazon organizing in other parts of the country, other parts of the world, because there has been a long history of workers across the country mobilizing. For instance, on Amazon, Friday sales days in Europe, for instance, there's been a lot of examples of mobilizing. So have you been in touch with any of these organizers? I spoke to people from all over the world. I lost count of how many people that reached out to me. The love and support I receive every day, so it's been very uplifting and empowering. But I spoke to a lot of people from all over the world regarding this matter. I'm not really, I haven't been an organizer prior to my firing, but I'm kind of learning and I'm being guided by people that have been doing this for a very long time. And I'm just trying to continue to do the right thing by the employees, stick by the employees, whether it be a union or organization or a coalition or even a rank and file committee ran by the employees that benefits the employees. That's what I'm aiming for. And I'm just taking the knowledge in as I can day to day. Right. And one of the aspects you've been also advocating is that consumers and customers also adopt a very aware approach to this. So could you talk a bit more about this? Yeah, as a consumer, you know, what they could do and support is they could boycott the companies, stop buying Amazon products right now until these companies, not just Amazon, all the companies involved boycott them until they protect the employees. If we're not safe and healthy and we're bringing these virus back home to the communities and our families, then we're no good. We're not essential. So they got to think about that as well, take that all into consideration. Right. And finally, Chris, any message for Mayday for the workers around the world? Join us. If you hear about it, if it's in your neighborhood or your city, your community, and you feel like it's the right thing to do, don't be afraid. Join us in solidarity. Thank you so much, Chris, for talking to us. Absolutely. Anytime.