In August of 2022, The Real News spoke with Matt Littrell, a picker at the Amazon warehouse in Campbellsville, Kentucky, and one of the lead organizers in an effort to unionize Amazon facilities in Kentucky. When we spoke with Matt, Amazon had just fired him in suspected retaliation for his organizing activities, citing “performance” issues. Since then, Matt has been dragged through a Kafka-esque legal process to hold Amazon, the second largest private employer in the US, accountable for violating workers’ rights. In this episode of Working People, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez checks back in with Matt to discuss recent developments in that process, including reaching a settlement with Amazon, which the National Labor Relations Board is now challenging, leaving Matt in legal limbo.

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Transcript

Matt Littrell:  Hey everybody. I’m Matt Littrell. You might remember me from this podcast back in August of last year shortly after I was fired by Amazon for organizing at our warehouse with the Amazon Labor Union. Afterward, I dealt with quite a struggle.

Maximillian Alvarez:  All right. Welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network, produced by Jules Taylor, and made possible by the support of listeners like you.

So as you guys heard, we’ve got a familiar voice back on the show today. If you guys go back in the archives, you will find our first interview with Matt Littrell, who we are happy to have back on the show today. Although I wish that we were reconnecting under better circumstances, we’ll link to that first interview we did with Matt back in August of 2022, where we were talking to Matt literally a week after he was fired by Amazon management at the warehouse he was working at, which was in Campbellsville, Kentucky. Matt was really becoming a prominent voice and face of this effort to organize Amazon facilities in Kentucky.

This was fresh off the historic Amazon Labor Union victory on Staten Island. We talked to Matt in that episode about his work there at Amazon, what it was like in that facility, what the organizing efforts had been, and then we talked about how the company fired him, allegedly for “performance issues.” But it had all of the trappings and hallmarks of retaliation for engaging in protected concerted activities, i.e. organizing in the workplace, which is your right as a worker. If your boss retaliates against you for it, you are supposed to have a system of accountability to help you defend your rights and seek redress through the National Labor Relations Board, and all that good stuff. You guys know all about that, we cover it all the time here on the show. But we wanted to bring Matt back on to talk about everything that’s happened since then.

As you heard Matt say, it’s not been an easy road, and sadly, this is very often the case. This is what you guys hear us preach all the time on this show, that we can’t get excited about a new Starbucks store unionizing somewhere else, and forget about all the fired Starbucks workers, all the people like in Ithaca who had their unionized stores closed, or Seattle or all the people who were getting de-scheduled and losing their health insurance because of it. All the people who may have voted successfully for a union, whether that be at Amazon, Starbucks, or Chipotle, have their stores closed, have the company not bargained in good faith, or never reached a first contract. We can’t claim early victories here. We got to see these struggles through and we got to take care of one another for, well, in general, in principle, until time immemorial. That’s the only way that we can do it.

But in this instance, we also got to make sure that the folks that we talk to, the struggles that we get invested in, we got to stay invested in those struggles, and we got to stay committed to our brothers and sisters out there. In that vein, man, I want to toss things back to you and give you the floor again and ask if you could maybe start by refreshing listeners’ memories a little bit. We don’t have to go through the whole saga that we went into when we had you on the show last August, but maybe give folks a little refresher on your situation there at Amazon, the work you were doing there, the organizing you were doing there, the conditions of your firing, and then let’s talk about everything that’s happened since, because it’s been quite a roller coaster, as you said.

Matt Littrell:  Yeah, yeah, it has. I appreciate you having me on today. As you said, no organizer is left behind, and that means we have to be there for each other. So at the Amazon facility, we started organizing in 2021, roughly a year before I was fired. I didn’t know the Amazon Labor Union back then but I was starting to get connected to the movement. Around December of that year, we started organizing with one union which was the machinist and aerospace workers. They helped us build our initial organizing committee but they helped us really devise a strategy. I joined the safety committee, and I joined the shift-specific safety team, Gemba, so I was sanctioned by the employer to talk to employees about protected concerted activities which are working conditions, and their grievances around those working conditions and all that stuff. So I find it very ironic that I was terminated for doing the same thing.

However, I put myself in a spot where, as an Amazon employee, you can’t talk to many people. I put myself in a spot where I could talk to absolutely everybody. So I had the perfect organizing role, and so we gained a lot of steam. The Amazon labor movement was really all behind the Amazon Labor Union, full steam ahead. When we got really big and when we had the opportunity to meet Chris Smalls, Derek Palmer, and the executive committee of the Amazon Labor Union, we joined up. We didn’t like being micromanaged by a huge union that was very bureaucratic and didn’t really have people in Kentucky to help us. So we joined up with ALU, started getting our card signed, and started organizing for that election because we thought we were ready.

But I was facing retaliation. I started getting these write-ups, these write-ups for supposed productivity. I had been there a year, I consider myself a professional at that job. I was really great at what I was tasked with, but the working conditions were never addressed. So we continued agitating around things like it being way too hot in that warehouse, things like overstuffed bins that caused injuries to many employees, and of course, our pay because Amazon didn’t pay worth a crap, but a lot of people thought it was better than the median in the area. But I started experiencing all of this retaliation, and in August, those write-ups got to the last one, and I was subsequently terminated. After that, immediately I pressed charges with the NLRB, adding that to all of my previous retaliation charges, retaliation, intimidation, surveillance, and calling the fricking cops on us like they did in June of last year. And that’s where we left off with the show.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Yeah. That was about it. Man, I’m so angry hearing all of this, and I’m so sorry that you’ve been going through this, because again, this is what it looks like in the trenches, and this is how low management will stoop to stop workers from exercising their rights. It is not an equal playing field. It never is. That is why we have the strength-in-numbers mentality about unions because otherwise, this is how they pick us off. This is how the laws are stacked in their favor. The enforcement of those laws is stacked in the boss’s favor and these are the real human consequences of that power imbalance that exists in workplaces around the country and around the world, and so on and so forth.

So it’s such a bullshit situation to be in, first and foremost. Then I wanted to acknowledge, that we are starting from a place where Matt was fired for exercising his rights. The whole point of rights is that you have them, that you can exercise them, and that they are inalienable, not that your manager can decide whether or not you get to exercise them. So tell us about what happened next. Tell us about the developments since then. How have you personally been doing? Has there been any movement in the effort to hold Amazon accountable for this?

Matt Littrell:  Yeah. I can definitely go on about that. So immediately after my firing, I applied for unemployment a few days later. One of the first things Amazon did to try and fuck with me was trying to deny my unemployment benefits and they would keep appealing it every time I would file for payments. So they were keeping me from getting that for half a year. I didn’t start getting unemployment payments until December but I got it all in one lump sum. So it was already a rough start to the journey of being unemployed but then Kentucky went ahead and passed a law that said you could only get 12 weeks of unemployment. That went into effect in January of this year. So basically, I was cut off again in March after only getting a little bit, and I’ve applied for so many jobs. People think that unemployed people are lazy or something like that. In Southern states, you have to apply for a whole bunch of jobs, and then you have to prove that you’re applying for those jobs to get anything. But once your name is all over the news for what you did as far as organizing goes, it makes it hard to get a regular job after that.

I was thankful to continue to have the opportunities that are organized at Amazon. I mentored a lot of employees, people who were asking me like, hey, how do we organize? So I was helping these employees go through the same journey as a new person in the labor movement that I went through. And it was an honor to be able to teach people how to organize and get them connected to the right resources and doing this as an independent person, not working with anybody at that point, really. Then I got involved with a disability justice for Amazon Workers campaign. It was through United for Respect, a 501C3 organization. And for that, they organize Amazon stuff around the country. They are really involved in Atlanta where they’re supporting the union efforts there. But this disability justice advocacy was on behalf of my partner who is an injured Amazon employee because of the working conditions there.

One of the big things that we did, was we went to DC to do some lobbying. We talked to politicians and representatives, and we were working with the help committee of the Senate which has their investigation into Amazon that is going on, and it was the only campaign of its kind that currently existed. Nobody else was focusing on Amazon employees who are disabled. Nobody was really organizing around better accommodations and making this process fair and equitable for everybody. It was a real privilege to be able to do that and we made some headway. We started making so much progress in these investigations, getting employees in touch with the health committee to share their stories about what it’s like to be disabled at Amazon, and for your accommodations to be rejected and to face discrimination because of that.

Another thing that I was really excited about was the opportunity to get involved with Starbucks organizing as a customer. Well, not really a customer. I don’t live by a Starbucks but you know what I mean, somebody who doesn’t work there. Since I was a part of the DSA and I saw that the Labor Commission was working with Starbucks on these customer solidarity events, Starbucks Workers United, I decided to host a couple of these solidarity events in the next town over, over in Danville, Kentucky. We made a really big impact. It’s more of a progressive town by Kentucky standards. It’s a college town, a liberal arts college, and that was an excellent show of solidarity.

Unfortunately, soon after our first event, I started having to go back and deal with the NLRB. The NLRB, I had been in this process for more than a year by then. I had the appointed attorney by the board that was representing me, I had him switched over to new attorneys in about February of this year, and then these attorneys didn’t really know a whole lot. They knew everything that was in my affidavits that were handed over to them, all that good stuff. They didn’t even meet me until a month out from my hearing. So that’s when they started meeting with me to get prepared for the hearing, go over everything, and all that good stuff. Then on September 9, we had my hearing. A little courtroom that wasn’t at all intimidating. It was like a fiscal court, so it honestly was like the back room, the back of a courtroom type of thing. It’s –

Maximillian Alvarez:  So it’s not full-on Law and Order style?

Matt Littrell:  No, not at all. I was surprised at how I thought I was going into Law and Order, so that’s why I was surprised at the location and stuff. But it was myself and my counsel and then Amazon’s counsel that were there, and of course, a judge. You should have seen the look on their faces when Amazon’s counsel sat down and everything, and they saw that huge stack of evidence that we gathered.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Oh, baby, I wish. See, that should be a Law and Order episode. In the socialist utopia, I want to watch a Law and Order where every case is about going after union-busters or environment-destroying companies and stuff like that. I would watch the shit out of that.

Matt Littrell:  Yeah. Yeah. Up until that point, up until the last couple of days before the hearing, I thought that it was going to be a slogfest going to trial and stuff like that. Essentially, I would’ve had to try and prove that they were manipulating the algorithm, so manually doing all of this stuff to me instead of having this excuse that, oh, well, you weren’t retaliated against because it was the algorithm and the algorithm doesn’t discriminate in our system. So that was intimidating to do for sure because a lot of judges don’t understand how TikTok works, and now, I got to learn how to understand an algorithm that Amazon uses myself when that’s not even publicly available. It’s all hidden in Amazon’s cloud computing sector, their AWS. They’re more of a cloud computing company than a retailer, by a long shot. That’s where all their profits are.

I thought it was going to be this slog fest. I was nervous going into it but I was tenacious as hell too. I was ready for this fight in court. I know they were pussyfooting around everything. When we would subpoena management, they would of course object to that subpoena and then ask for more time to provide evidence, stuff like that. They subpoenaed me a few days before the hearing. They wanted me to provide an extensive amount of information to them on the day of the hearing but only gave me three days to do that, which was crazy. Since I didn’t really have labor lawyers that could give me actual advice, NLRB counsel who are appointed to you, they’ll be there for you every step of the way, all that good stuff, but they’re not going to give you legal advice. Not at all. They’re going to try and seem like they’re not coaching you for what you do, so they can’t do stuff in the way that an actual attorney could.

With all that aim, me having to use unorthodox things… Because you talk to a union, you try to get in touch with their labor lawyer, all that stuff, they’re like, we’re not going to represent you because you’re not a member of our union but you can go over here, and pay $300 an hour to this attorney if you really need an attorney. That’s how much labor lawyers cost. That’s still so freaking expensive. I obviously could not afford that, not even close to being able to afford that. I was struggling to keep a roof over my head. So I had to use AI, I was using chat GPT to direct me to NLRB archives and cases and all this stuff that I could study on my own. I was using this stuff to learn how to file legal documents in case I had to actually do that on my own, which you always had to check the accuracy of AI, but I was keen on that.

I’m like, okay, point me in the right direction. I’ll go look at it. I’ll go make my decision about it. Because everything at the NLRB, it doesn’t matter what their policy and stuff is. Honestly, everything is case law. That essentially means that they’re going to start using all of these cases to validate any decisions that they make going forward. So they’re always going to look at a previous case to justify how the procedure goes going forward. And they did that. At the hearing, they were talking about Starbucks cases, all that stuff to justify the fact that Amazon and I had come to a settlement agreement. It was unilateral. I signed off on it, the union signed off on it. Well, Seth Goldstein, the union’s lawyer – Who for all of his merits, he’s a great guy. He was there for me the whole time, but I knew that he was so freaking busy working 80 hours a week, working on all these different cases everywhere, that I couldn’t depend on him to answer every single question I had – He signed off on it and the judge signed off on it, of course.

Unilateral settlements but as a matter of policy, the NLRB decided to have their general counsel object to it because of arbitrary language, essentially. It didn’t include a default clause which is something that would allow the NLRB to prosecute the charged party in the event that they don’t follow through with the settlement agreement. And then they objected because it was like a baby thing too, like a tantrum, because the judge had not properly weighed the general counsel’s position. Then the last thing they said was, that they tried to say that the clause of confidentiality was too broad but actually, it was very narrow. The only thing I can talk about in the settlement is I can’t reveal the financial terms. That’s it. I can’t tell anybody that. That is very narrow. Nothing that restricts you is ever reasonable but from Amazon’s point of view, it would be pretty embarrassing if I revealed that.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Right. This is how they like to deal with most of their problems, is all these companies settle or slap an NDA on folks. Basically, keep the ugly side out of public view so that they can maintain this public image and keep all that dirty laundry out of public sight. So to clarify though, for folks listening, what this essentially boils down to is that you and Amazon reached a settlement. You all signed off on it. It was signed off by the judge but then the National Labor Relations Board General Counsel appealed that settlement or has challenged that settlement on the grounds that the confidentiality clause is problematic and that there’s another part of it. There’s a technicality that they’re taking issue with because…

But in effect, what’s happening is that the NLRB is keeping you from getting your money. So are they challenging this because they’re worried that if they can get you to sign off on something that has broader implications for other workers who find themselves in this situation? Are they worried that there’s going to be a case law that could emerge from this somehow that would be ultimately damaging? I’m trying to understand the rationale here for folks who are listening.

Matt Littrell:  So the only reason I was really given is that they protect the public’s rights, essentially. So the public’s rights are greater than mine and if I have to fall on the sword and go through this process all over again, then that’s what they’re going to do as a matter of their policy. So yeah, they’re worried about the precedent that it sets but everything I was going to my actual hearing for was my retaliation experience. I don’t see where they ever had a valid reason to object if you know what I’m saying.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Yeah. That’s so tough because again, knowing what I know about the case from having talked to you about it, knowing that there is a settlement, knowing how, as you’ve described, you’ve been really going through really hellish shit since then because losing your job can be devastating. And having to go through all of this process, especially without a union lawyer to help you or the resources. Who among us can go just fucking pay $300 an hour to put together our legal defense? It really highlights how stacked the whole system is in favor of one side over the other.

I was interviewing people who work at the NLRB a couple of weeks ago on this show before what was then an impending government shutdown, and personally, it was a really important interview because I don’t think I’ve heard anyone interview like NLRB staffers before a government shutdown about what that is going to mean to them, what it’s going to mean for the caseloads that they’ve got, what it’s going to mean for the union election dates that were going to fall after that, potential government shutdown. Now the shutdown was temporarily averted. We’ll see if that sticks. But even so, as we talked about on that episode, the NLRB does really important work. It is perpetually understaffed. It is a constant political football and it’s been strangled over the past decade without a budgetary increase until last year.

I talked to workers all of the time who need and rely on the NLRB to actually enforce labor law to hold companies accountable for violating workers’ rights, yada, yada, yada. That’s all important, but still, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We still have to understand the human costs of the way that this process works and the inefficiencies therein because that’s essentially causing you, after all, this long-drawn-out process from before you got fired. The retaliation, the write-ups, then getting fired, Amazon fucking with you, and you’re trying to get your unemployment benefits, trying to navigate this legal system more or less on your own. But shout out to Seth for stepping in and helping out. I know that, yeah, he’s been running all over the place. And again, we need as many folks doing that work as we possibly can.

But that’s a long rambly way of bringing us back to the literal fact that you had a goddam settlement. You need that money, however much it is, and now the NLRB itself is challenging the terms of that settlement that keeps you in limbo and keeps you from getting that money. So is the hope for the NLRB that you’ll go through this process again, and still get your settlement, but the language will be a little bit better in the end? Do we even know what that timeline would look like?

Matt Littrell:  Basically, what I think the outcome of the settlement would be… Well, the attorneys that were appointed to me, have been pretty avoidant because they know I am upset, and I am torn up about this. I didn’t say anything to them that was mean or anything like that, but it’s like, yeah, they’re doing this thing now, the appeals process, it’s crazy that they hadn’t made a decision on the appeal when the NLRB makes decisions very quickly about everything else that has happened in the case, whether it was a subpoena, a motion of summary judgments, stuff like that that was filed and the timeline. All I knew was that the NLRB had 14 business days from the day of the trial. So that’s why the settlement appeal officially went through right before that 14-day mark so they got around to it pretty late trying to drag it out, and then Amazon and their counsel filed their objections to the special appeal, and there hasn’t been any word since Amazon’s filing.

It’s pretty crazy. The NLRB says that its stated goal is that they’re here to make workers whole. That’s supposed to be their goal. But in reality, if they wanted to tell the truth, they would say their goal is to merely enforce the policies of whoever the head of the general counsel is, and whatever precedent they set. It’s not like these attorneys wanted to object to it and they caught me off guard after the trial because they were saying, oh, we’re going to have to file a special appeal and all that stuff. So this is going to take quite a long time. I knew that they would raise objections but I didn’t know that they wouldn’t have this whole process that drags it out. So really, this was all done without my informed consent.

Maximillian Alvarez:  God, man. I want to try to… This is so goddam frustrating. I’m frustrated. I can only imagine how frustrated you are with all of this. Jesus, I can only hope that this moves quickly and that we get the resolution that we need that Amazon not be allowed to keep doing this to people. I want to bring it back there that ultimately, we’re still all here. We’re talking about all of this because Amazon violated your rights. They started all this, they are still the ultimate culprits, but workers like Matt need help. They don’t need people getting in their goddam way. We don’t need more of these delays, and we need a process that’s more accessible to people who don’t have the time, the resources and what have you, and the institutional support to go through this. The experience of this process is very different for Matt than it is for Amazon and its company lawyers. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make. One side can keep this going for as long as they want there. They got more money than God. The other side does not. So what do we do with that?

That’s where I wanted to end up, man, is we are with you. I know that the folks listening to this and the folks who listened to the first episode that we did are as frustrated as I am hearing about this. I know that they’ll want to hear about ways that they can support you, that they can support Amazon workers fighting to unionize what they can do to hold Amazon accountable, and put pressure where it needs to be put so that you get the settlement that you deserve. I wanted to by way of rounding out, ask if you could maybe tell us a little bit about that. What folks can do to help, where things stand now, and any parting thoughts that you want to leave folks with who maybe heard that first interview, they’re hearing this… Because we don’t want folks to get discouraged but we don’t want to be pollyannish about the struggles that we face and all the barriers that are put in our way. So yeah. Take us out on any final parting thoughts that you have, anything that folks can do, and any final words that you want to share with folks out there listening.

Matt Littrell:  As bad as things have gotten, there have been moments that were really empowering for me throughout this. I had comrades that had my back, people that wanted to talk to me, hear my story, learn from me, and get help for all these things. I even joined the DSA Labor Commission and started being a volunteer organizer with EWOC, Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. I’ve taken on a couple of cases to help workers organize. I wanted to finally have the energy to organize in a systemic way. And after the settlement and stuff like that, after that initial day, after the hearing, I was pretty empowered because I didn’t think things were going to turn out so bad. But again, I don’t want people to be discouraged because if you become really good at your storytelling and you make the right connections with the right comrades, then people will be there for you.

People like Max, you donated mutual aid to me several times and had me on your show and did all that good stuff. You were there for me and a lot of people really were there. A lot of people donated when I needed it the most and really got me out of the immediate pickle for a while. There are these moments that are empowering. In light of things that have been happening in the last week, a bunch of comrades and I got together and we started a group on Instagram where we would all collaborate to make revolutionary content, especially standing with the people of Palestine, and it was like knowing that we’re not alone and that so many people all over the world stand with Palestine and are protesting and are getting out there and that are doing the same thing that we are doing, that’s also really empowering. I’ve seen a lot of things. It can conflict with unions because the unions that are involved with making the war machine run are the ones that organize at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Hallie Burton.

They’re all unionized and essentially with one union, machinists and aerospace workers, and unfortunately, that union – I don’t know if they’re coerced into doing this because AFL-CIO members have to, as their constitution, they have to stand with all of the political and economic decisions – But the IEM released their statement, which is like, we support Israel, condemn Hamas, conversation’s so centered around Hamas. That’s the most annoying thing; These are the Palestinians and they and anybody they align themselves with, we need to be supportive of. It’s a literal genocide going on here. But the fact that the military-industrial complex is unionized means that if these workers were radicalized, they could absolutely stop the war machine from turning. They can do that. We’ve seen Starbucks trying to sue their union for standing for Palestine. We as comrades have been doing our part to combat misinformation that is rooted in Zionism, which is going hand in hand with a white superiority disorder.

So going forward, we’re going to continue to struggle. If you want to find me on social media, it’s @Unionizeamazonky, all of it in one word. You can check out documents over on my linktree and my social media bios where there are some pretty important things about the Amazon struggle and mutual aid resources. That’s one thing: Learn the power of mutual aid. The biggest barrier that I’ve seen people wanting to organize is the risk. The risk factor is that you’re going to get fired. It’s going to take food out of your mouth and food out of your children’s belly. If you learn how to organize your community and your mutual aid, that’ll also translate to the union struggle because once people have their needs taken care of, they feel a lot more comfortable organizing. That’s why I feel my role as somebody on EWOC or as a mentor to any of these other workers, is to eliminate all of the different tasks you have to do as a labor leader. Which would mean alleviating that stress because it’s like working three or four jobs to organize your workplace. Anything we can do to alleviate the stress of that and make sure people’s needs are being met in real-time, that’s what’ll get this labor movement on the right track, which I think it is. It has made so much significant progress but towards a tract of making more systemic change.

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Editor-in-Chief
Ten years ago, I was working 12-hour days as a warehouse temp in Southern California while my family, like millions of others, struggled to stay afloat in the wake of the Great Recession. Eventually, we lost everything, including the house I grew up in. It was in the years that followed, when hope seemed irrevocably lost and help from above seemed impossibly absent, that I realized the life-saving importance of everyday workers coming together, sharing our stories, showing our scars, and reminding one another that we are not alone. Since then, from starting the podcast Working People—where I interview workers about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles—to working as Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review and now as Editor-in-Chief at The Real News Network, I have dedicated my life to lifting up the voices and honoring the humanity of our fellow workers.
 
Email: max@therealnews.com
 
Follow: @maximillian_alv