The individual who was arrested Monday night after jumping over a police barricade outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is Christian Daniel Smalls, a cofounder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union.
The 37-year-old Smalls was arrested at 8:15 p.m. by New York City police officers and taken into custody in the Central Park precinct, according to a spokesperson for the New York City Police Department. Smalls was charged with resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, trespass, disorderly contact and failure to obey traffic devices, according to a NYPD spokesperson. He was awaiting his arraignment Tuesday. Smalls is a resident of Lodi, N.J.
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His identity was confirmed by Derrick Palmer, cofounder of the Amazon Labor Union. Smalls’ executive assistant Julieta Morales said he was due before a judge Tuesday.
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ and Lauren Sánchez Bezos’ lead sponsorship of the Met Gala and the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition “Costume Art” has sparked protests in New York City in recent days, as well as social media debate about corporate greed and workers’ rights. Earlier this week a LED video message calling for improved workers’ rights was projected on the exterior of the Manhattan building where Bezos has an apartment.
Media requests to Amazon and Smalls’ attorney were not returned Tuesday. A spokesperson for Bezos and his wife declined to comment.
In a statement that was released late Tuesday afternoon, the Amazon Labor Union said, “Smalls’ protest activity and arrest at the Met Gala were not connected to ALU-IBT Local 1, and his actions were not coordinated with the rank-and-file worker leaders and movement partners currently building a national campaign to take on Amazon. Additionally, the activity was not related to the ‘Ball Without Billionaires’ event, which our union among others cosponsored yesterday morning in protest of the Met Gala.”
The union’s statement called for Smalls’ immediate release and said, “…we condemn the NYPD’s aggressive treatment of protesters. At the same time, we do not believe lone-wolf direct actions which aim to center one individual as the focus of what must be a collective struggle are helpful to the deep organizing the Amazon workers across the country are engaged in every day.”
Smalls has not been involved with the union’s organizing since August 2024 and he “does not speak on behalf of the union,” according to the statement issued by Amazon’s Labor Union.
Video footage of police officials detaining Smalls in the street Monday night also shows several feet away the Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu wearing a strapless red gown on the Met Gala’s red carpet. Her agent Yuki Saegusa had not responded to a media request Tuesday afternoon. A spokesperson for Tom Ford, who was reportedly also nearby during the fracas, said he was traveling and unavailable to comment.
Palmer said he and Smalls met in 2019 as coworkers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse and they staged the first employee walkout in March 2020, calling for safer working conditions for Amazon employees during the COVID pandemic. That led to Smalls’ dismissal and Palmer being “written up,” Palmer claimed. The pair then started the nonprofit labor group the Congress of Essential Workers. In 2022, Smalls and Palmer started the first Amazon labor union at the JFK8 fulfillment center, which now has approximately 6,000 members, according to Palmer. Smalls has supported other labor-related initiatives including rallying with the Model Alliance in 2023 to advocate for the Fashion Workers Act.
Smalls is no longer affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, according to a spokesperson for the group. Smalls’ first book “When the Revolution Comes” is due out in June from Penguin Random House.
After his release, Smalls said Wednesday that his “gripe” with Jeff Bezos, was regarding unresolved contract negotiations with the union that he helped start at Amazon’s JFK8 facility on Staten Island. Amazon did not respond to a media request seeking comment.