When The Revolution Comes Author: Chris Smalls ISBN-13: 978-0241803486Publisher: Viking Guideline Price: £20During the Covid pandemic Chris Smalls, a street-savvy young man from the hood, and a heck of a warehouse picker, organised a walkout protest at the Staten Island Amazon warehouse known as JFK8 where he worked. He was immediately fired for what the company said was a violation of their social-distancing policy. But there was no policy, which was the reason for the protest. Since that day Smalls has been on a mission to organise labour not only at his warehouse, but among the 900,000 Amazon warehouse workers, and all the non-union workers throughout the world. When the Revolution Comes is a modern-day Grapes of Wrath that exposes corporate America’s skulduggery, and its author is a real-life Tom Joad, but “decked out in bright colours and full drip”. Where he grew up, Smalls learned from a young age “that you really have to be careful about letting people disrespect you”. So when Amazon cut him loose, it wasn’t in his nature to go quietly. Over the next three years Smalls set out to unionise the JFK8 warehouse workers. There were warehouses around the country trying to do the same thing, but they all failed. Smalls understood the game: “Organising Black and brown workers goes beyond having people who look like them in positions of power ... It’s about people being represented by those who have lived lives similar to theirs. It can never work if you don’t do that.”Smalls needed 30 per cent of the workers to sign the union agreement. He got it. In October 2023 the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at JFK8 was established. Amazon has 350 warehouses and 1,000 fulfilment centres, yet the ALU is the only one unionised. Consider that “in France, 98 per cent of workers are covered under a collective bargaining agreement”. His dream evokes Tom Joad’s: “I envision a legitimate Labor Party on the ballot in every local, city, state, and federal election. I know I sound like someone who has lost touch with reality. I know I’m dreaming about things that sound impossible. But you should know by now that when the revolution comes, it comes disguised as an impossible dream.”Richard Horan is an author and critic