Chris Smalls spent most of the last 11 months in a tiny tent across the street from Amazon’s Staten Island 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center, where he was fired after protesting the company’s lack of protections during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We had nothing. We started off with two tables, two chairs and a tent,” he said after the union he helped to found scored an improbable victory over one of the world’s largest companies. “And that’s it.”