A New Jersey man who founded an Amazon union has been charged after jumping a police barricade while protesting outside the Met Gala on Monday.
Christian Smalls, 37, of Lodi, was arrested after he entered a restricted zone shortly before 7 p.m., according to the NYPD. Officers on the scene took him into custody.
The incident occurred as the event was underway and celebrities were arriving at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Smalls was holding a sign that read, “Amazon refuses! To negotiate a contract with its union at JFK [Terminal] 8,” CBS News New York reported.
The sign also alleged that the company “invests in genocide” in Israel.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, were the main sponsors and honorary chairs of the event, a move that sparked a series of protests, according to People.com.
Smalls was charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and failure to obey a traffic device, police said.
Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1 said in a statement that Smalls’ protest and arrest were not connected to the union and that he has not been involved in the organization since August 2024.
Smalls was fired from his job at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York, in 2020 after organizing a protest over concerns about working conditions that could lead to a COVID-19 outbreak, according to a report from ABC News.
He later served as president of the Amazon Labor Union.
Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1 urged Smalls’ immediate release and criticized what it described as 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,” the union wrote.
“Uncoordinated activity like this only serves to undermine that work and drown out workers’ voices.”
Smalls did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, WWD reported.