>> This is very dangerous. You can have oversight hearings all you like,
but you have determined Amazon is a piece of crap company. That's your political bias.
They're subject to the laws of the United States. They shouldn't be subject to this.
If we get the committee back, we're not gonna do this.
This is a heavy handed approach, the most radical agenda in my lifetime.
And it should be carried out at the ballot box and it will be.
>> Well, first of all I want to address Mr Graham first off,
it sounds like he was talking about more of the companies and the businesses in your speech.
But you forgot that the people are the ones who make these companies operate and then we're not
protected. And the process for when we hold these companies accountable is not working for us, then
that's the reason why we're here today. >> And that of course is Chris Smalls, president
of the Amazon labor union testifying before Congress yesterday and I'm gonna keep it real.
I had not actually watched the beginning of the clip before when
Lindsey Graham like perform early lost, like you're acting like it's a piece of
crap company. I almost spit out my coffee >> On the camera. Like calm down Lindsey,
I get it, you love corporations, you don't care about workers.
He was very honest there, Lindsay was, if we take over this committee,
we're not gonna be doing this. There is not gonna be any oversight whatsoever of
any corporations and you workers, who very briefly are having your opinions actually considered.
It is not gonna happen if we take over again.
Well, don't worry Lindsay, we trust you, but we wanna give a little bit more time
to Chris smalls there to respond to what Lindsay was saying, let's start with this.
>> Guys in your best interest to realize that it's not a left or right thing. It's not a Democrat or
Republican thing, It's a worker's thing, It's a worker's issue and we're the ones that are
suffering on the corporations that you're talking about,
in the businesses that you're talking about, in the warehouses that you're talking about.
So that's the reason why I think I was invited today to speak on that behalf, and you should
listen, because we do represent your constituents as well. So just take that into consideration that
the people are the ones that make these corporations go, it's not the other way around.
>> So I could not agree with what Chris Small says, they're more. That's like the core thing
that over the last year so we here at the damage report and generally at TYT I would say have
been trying to get through to them. They try to make all of this a partisan thing left, right.
And they do that in part to hide the fact that the right,
which loves to pretend in very vague terms, they're the ones who are going to deliver
for their constituents. That's not actually true, Chris Small is totally right there.
Workers deserve respect, and more importantly, they deserve to be compensated fairly
and protected in terms of regulations, of how the their workplaces exist.
Whether they're Democrats or Republicans, leftist conservatives, there are a lot
of conservative workers who are being treated horribly by their bosses, by their corporations
and the right doesn't care. They distract them from that. They try to delude them into thinking
that that's not worth addressing through their focus on CRT and all that stuff Jayar.
And so I love that Chris Smalls fought against the narrative that Lindsey Graham
was trying to spread in that video. >> Well, I'm not not sure how Lindsey
Graham feels that you can say things like this as a senator and not expect
that kind of pushback. It's because the narrative has been pushed so many times
and we just accepted, hey, so the Republican Party is literally against workers rights, straight up.
He's saying it, and he says it because he thinks he sees this black dude from New York who has
the accent and thinks he's not very smart. That will just trample all over you and say,
how dare you call Amazon a piece of crap company? Guarantee you if Amazon decides
to do something that conservatives don't like, guess who's gonna call it a piece of crap company.
They're calling Disney a piece of crap company. Others that have called Disney piece of crap
company before they opposed these things against trans kids and and actually gets talking about who
they are in their lives and maybe their parents. Now Disney is a piece of crap
company. But this is the one glimpse into what Republicans will be looking for as legislators.
They keep telling us what they would do when they're back in power. We're
not gonna do oversight, you mentioned that stuff. This is their legislative agenda to
attack workers and real people who push companies along. They really think that
these companies, that Jeff Bezos walks his ass in there every day and does all this work.
No, they do these types of things and they suppress their work so
they can continue to it because they think they're expendable.
We can get the next guy and the next guy in the next guy because we don't give you
enough to make it feel like there's something that you can take to advance your career here.
And once people are done with it, they're like, we got the next year, there's plenty of poor
folks for us to choose from. That's their agenda, but they just don't want to explicitly say it.
And once Chris Smalls pushed back, what Lindsey Graham have to say. I mean, I'm not sure if he's
anything after, but as he's talking, it's head nodding, man, this guy is smarter than I thought.
>> Yeah, exactly, maybe he's just been believing what he said on Fox news. But I'm glad that you
brought up Disney there because look at what the two sides are focusing on, in terms of
corporations. And by the way, what I'm gonna say is the left side is not the Democrats.
They're not focused on anything, but like the labor movement on the left is trying to fight
for workers rights, compensation, those sorts of things from some of the biggest corporations
in the country now. Amazon, Starbucks are two of the most out front, but there's a lot of
other movements going on saying we deserve to be paid better, we deserve to be protected.
There is still a pandemic. You're overworking us, benefits, all that stuff. And on the right it's,
Disney wants to have gay kisses, seriously? Like this is what they're choosing to focus on and we
should mock that. There are so many conservative workers that it is gonna be hard to get through
to, to get them to understand as we say constantly that we have their economic interests at heart in
a way that conservatives literally never will because they're being paid not to.
It is so hard to get through to them, but we have to try. We're the ones that want them to be paid,
that want them to be able to retire with dignity, that want them to be able to own their own home
and send their kids to college and not face bankruptcy at the first
$500 economic issue that they face or medical bankruptcy.
Those sorts of things, we're the ones actually fighting for their interests.
People like Chris Smalls and others. And by the way, we're using a bit of shorthand
Chris Smalls is testifying that video. There were a number of different labor activists
involved or not involved specifically with the effort to unionize Amazon.
I wanna talk a bit though about why this was called, now Bernie Sanders was instrumental in
getting this actually happen, he's the head of the Senate budget committee. And what he wanted to do
is, he wanted to get the perspective of workers as they focus on the fact that right now the federal
government, but by the way, we're gonna jump ahead to what they did after that testimony.
But they're providing these contracts to companies that regularly routinely break federal labor laws.
Now Amazon has racked up at this point, more than $75 million in fines for violating federal,
discrimination and wage laws. That is a large amount of money in absolute terms. Obviously for
them it's basically nothing because these fines are never in line with the severity of the crimes.
Now, what's interesting though is,
last year the company basically had to come to a settlement, having to do with some of
the activities they've been getting up to. The issue was that, right after they did that,
right after by the way, the testimony that you saw, more contracts were given to Amazon.
And so we're gonna show you in a little bit, Joe Biden who's gonna meet with these organizers and
everything. And the issue is, coming out of this Lindsey Graham looks like the bad guy because he's
the one that's yelling at them and getting all worked up and defending Amazon and everything.
But at the same time, while the Democrats are the ones that are having them come in to testify,
are they really on their side, is Joe Biden? He's in speeches, he's indicated that he supports
this unionization effort at Amazon. Every once in a while he mentioned it, but
are you gonna see him there, is he gonna go speak to the workers before vote or something Jayar?
I sort of doubt that they're gonna give that really proactive
support. Like letting them come in and testify is something but that is hardly
as far as they could go. >> As you're pointing out,
Democrats throughout history have decided to make sure they only associate with
folks like this when it comes to a time to look better, what are you gonna do to implement it?
And the way that they can also prove that is as small as point out there,
it's not just Democrats bro, Republicans work and they're regular working Americans too. If
Democrats can find a way to actually listen to folks in different areas not just what they think
are their democratic strongholds, because workers want workers rights, no matter where they vote.
The reasons why Republicans have split folks so much is cuz they've
also dealt to what many people's personal biases, maybe racial,
gender based, all these types of biases they have, and have them on their side. But you know what
everyone wants? They want some prosperity, they wanna be thanked and respected for their work.
I don't care where you're from. And if they actually do it, they can actually
attract people rather than just doing it as a photo op or hey Chris Smalls said something.
Let's make sure you stand next to me and I can do this and roll up my sleeves
and say I'm really working with the people and maybe you'll vote for me.
People see through that, Smalls will see through that. They call people
out no matter what party you're from because they want the respect
and they wanna get what they deserve. Let's keep real, these aren't handoffs,
this is what they're working for. >> Exactly yeah, as he says, Amazon
is a thing in some senses, but Amazon is the product of the workers.
At the end of the day, until they finally replace everyone with robots, it's people who lift
things up and put them in boxes and close it and put it on a truck and actually send it to you.
Let alone actually manufacturing the goods in the first place. It is all actual workers, sure.
Bezos or whatever, whatever billionaire and in individual cases, organizes it and stuff
and there's managers and everything. But at the end of the day it is about the people
that are doing the actual work. They have been ignored for the entirety of American history.
And at some point there was a brief moment, like 75 years ago,
maybe like 90 years ago, where we briefly started to care about workers.
And that's how we got things like the weekend and stuff like that.
It is time for another period like that. We desperately need it, the pandemic was a
reminder of how little corporations actually care about workers. And so let's get more people like
Chris Smalls and other labor activists that we feature on the show out there.
Let's get them the support they need, recognition by the media to
elevate their message by politicians. People like Bernie Sanders by the way,
who have a platform that know that when they ally themselves with a cause
that doesn't just provide a moral boost like a morale boost, it provides coverage.
He can bring that to it.