BUYING from Amazon is “crossing a picket line,” the leader of the US union at the trillion-dollar organisation told the TUC Black Workers’ Conference in London on Saturday.

Chris Smalls, the co-founder and president of the Amazon Labour Union, which was set up in 2021, told the conference that he wasn’t calling for a boycott of the company. “We want the company to succeed because we need the jobs.

“But we also need the company to treat people properly.”

Mr Smalls, a former Amazon supervisor, organised a protest in 2020 against the lack of health and safety at the company’s Staten Island warehouse during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He was sacked by the company, owned by one of the richest people in the world, Jeff Bezos, for allegedly violating Amazon’s social distancing policies.

After being dismissed Mr Smalls set up the Congress of Essential Workers which later formed the ALU in 2021.

Following a bitter recognition campaign, which the company tried to undermine using union-busting techniques, the Staten Island warehouse voted to set up a union in April of last year.

Mr Smalls said: “We didn’t follow the usual playbook used by workers trying to organise a union.

When the campaign was won “all we had in the bank was around $2” (£1.60).

“But all along we knew we had the most important thing which was people power.”

Mr Smalls said his union was pioneering what they called “New School Labour,” which he said “doesn’t play by the same rules” as established unions and did not “cosy up to politicians.

“International solidarity is what will win our first contract with Amazon. 

“The truth is whenever you buy from Amazon you are crossing a picket line. 

He added: “So if you must buy from Amazon, send $5 to support the work of our union.”