Fired Amazon worker speaks out: 'I don't want my job back'

Christian Smalls says he was terminated from his job at a Staten Island, New York Amazon warehouse after organizing a protest this past Monday to raise awareness of what he says is an unsafe work environment.

Video transcript

CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Our job description says have a high school diploma and then a GED and lift 50 pounds. It doesn't say put your life on the line for a virus that doesn't have any cure.

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I trained hundreds of managers over the course of my five-year tenure, thousands of associates. My biggest fear is actually somebody passing away. I took my stance because I feel like this is the right thing to do. This virus has no remorse, so I was not trying to be disruptive. I wasn't trying to be against the company. I was trying to build the relationship between the employees and management, the higher-ups, the VPs, Jeff Bezos himself.

And they dropped the ball. They answered with a termination. That was their response? Shame on the company. That shows you right there that they don't care about people. They wanted silence me. They wanted to cut off the head of the snake. I don't want to work for a CEO that don't care about people. Obviously, he don't care about me and my family and my three kids that I have to take care of. They're going to spin it as if I came in contact, I endangered people. No, I actually helped people. The company put their own employees at risk.

Amazon asked me to stay away from that facility for 14 days because I came in contact with somebody that tested positive. Reported to work Tuesday morning. She'd been there three whole days prior to that. Why was that person in the building? How long was that person in the building? Thank God I came and sent her home. She looked sick. She told me she went to take the test the night before. I said, you need to go home immediately, and that's what she did.

She was around employees for 10 hours. None of them got quarantined. Why only me? If I didn't come to work that day, she would have been over there another full 10-hour shift. I was at that building, in and out of that building every single day for 8 hours a day. There's a number of cases in that building that are undisclosed. We're in double digits. Ironically, the same day of my walkout, they decided to send a mass test out for the first time ever.

I get done with an interview with Chris Haynes, and they send out another mass text for three more cases-- three more cases that just all of a sudden popped up. So they're being exposed right now. They're scrambling. Somebody from Amazon reached out directly on Monday to terminate me. They're trying to silence me. It's not going to work. I'm going to continue to fight and I'm going to continue to stand with my people and support them.

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Stop comparing us to the Red Cross. Stop saying that we're heroes of the community right now. We're regular people. This virus is popping up in these buildings all over the nation right now. And the guidelines that they have implemented are not working. The medical field don't even have PPE.

The nurses, the doctors, the first responders, they don't even have gloves and masks and the proper gear. What makes you think the retail industry do? Yeah, we've got gloves. The gloves are meant for picking up boxes. They're not latex. We don't have masks. We're not protected. We're unsafe.

We shouldn't be risking our lives or being forced to stay home with unpaid time right now. The people want their money. They want to be paid. Amazon has enough money to pay their employees. We know that. The richest man in the world, a trillion-dollar enterprise, pay your people. The people want to be taken care of. They want to be appreciated. And right now, the company dropped the ball on that.

We're in New York. This is the epicenter of the right now. My building alone has 5,000 employees that come in and out of that building from all five boroughs in New York. Imagine if we are all carriers of this virus. Do the math. That's a dangerous situation. So yes, I do want them to shut down the building.

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People go to work for different reasons. They have no choice sometimes. They have to pay their bills. People are afraid to lose their job. They're afraid of retaliation. I was motivated by people rallying behind me. I couldn't just sit back and do nothing and watch people get sick. Take a page out of Mark Cuban's book. He has his people home right now with pay. He has plenty of businesses. They're all home with pay right now. You have enough money to do the same thing. Do it.