Derrick Palmer (born 1988 or 1989) is an American labor activist and whistleblower. He is Vice President of Organizing of the Amazon Labor Union. He works at the Amazon JFK8 sorting facility on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

Early life and education

Palmer grew up in

Piscataway, New Jersey Piscataway () is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. It is a suburb of the New York metropolitan area, in the Raritan Valley. At the 2010 United States Census, the population was 56,044, an increase of 5,562 (+11.0%) fr ...

to a single mother who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. In high school, Palmer attempted to play

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

, but said it wasn't for him. His mother enrolled him in theater, which he enjoyed and led him to aspire to become an actor. Palmer attended community college, but dropped out.

Activism at Amazon

Palmer joined Amazon in a warehouse in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey in 2016 where he counted product inventory. He later transferred to New York City's JFK8 warehouse, where he is a manager. After Palmer's best friend from the warehouse,

Chris Smalls Christian Smalls (born 1988 or 1989) is an American labor organizer known for his role in leading Amazon worker organization in Staten Island, a borough in New York City. He is the president and founder of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) since 2021 ...

, was forced out due to what Amazon said was a violation of the company's social distancing policies, the two decided to start a unionization effort. Together they started the Amazon Labor Union. The JFK8 warehouse voted in favor of unionizing on April 1, 2022. Palmer and

were named two of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2022.

''Palmer v. Amazon''

On June 3, 2020, Palmer and two other colleagues, along with three of their family members, filed a lawsuit against Amazon on behalf of JFK8 employees and their families. They are represented by

Make the Road New York Make the Road New York (MRNY) is the largest progressive grassroots immigrant-led organization in New York state. The organization works on issues of workers' rights; immigrant and civil rights; environmental and housing justice; justice for tran ...

, Public Justice, Terrell Marshall Law Group, and Towards Justice. The lawsuit alleged that Amazon "unreasonably" interfered with the workers' right to public health and failed to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and New York State public health laws, resulting in an alleged breach in Amazon's duty to provide a safe working environment. The lawsuit was dismissed on November 2, 2020, after Judge Brian Cogan determined the jurisdiction was with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The legal team filed an

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

on November 24, 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, Derrick 1980s births Living people African-American activists African-American trade unionists Amazon (company) people American social activists American social justice activists American trade unionists People from Piscataway, New Jersey Trade unionists from New Jersey Workers' rights activists 21st-century African-American people 21st-century American people Year of birth missing (living people)