Opinion | Amazon Tried One of the Oldest Tricks in the Book, and It Backfired

Faced with an unexpectedly strong organizing campaign by workers at one of its Staten Island warehouses, Amazon initially turned to one of the oldest tricks in the anti-union playbook: a little bit of racism.

Speaking about Christian Smalls, a warehouse employee who was fired after he led a walkout in March 2020, David Zapolsky, Amazon’s general counsel, said in leaked meeting notes, “He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent that the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers.”

Zapolsky believed Amazon could discredit the organizers if they made Smalls — who is young and Black, and has tattoos on his neck — “the face of the entire union/organizing movement.”

If that was the plan, it backfired.