New York, New York - Amazon Labor Union co-founder Chris Smalls was reportedly arrested on Monday during a protest outside the Met Gala in New York City.

Videos on social media show NYPD officers surrounding a man and forcibly restraining him as he attempts to cross a barricade near the Met Gala's red carpet entrance.

The NYPD did not confirm the name of the protester arrested, simply saying he was a 37-year-old male.

Social media users have widely identified the man as Smalls, who helped win Amazon's first US union at the JFK 8 warehouse on Staten Island.

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Smalls previously served as president of the Amazon Labor Union and was named one of Time's 100 most influential people of the year in 2022.

This year's Met Gala was sponsored by Amazon's billionaire executive chair Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos. Both were named honorary co-chairs of the event, sparking protests and calls for a boycott.

Smalls was asked in a recent podcast episode if he would go to the Met Gala, to which he responded, "Yes, I'm going."

"Amazon is slavery, fast forward 400 years," the organizer said. "They call us pickers, and that was my department. Same thing our ancestors did, picking cotton, the same productivity system – now with robots, metrics, data, but it's the same process."

Smalls is known for his advocacy linking workers' rights activism with international struggles against US imperialism.

The labor leader participated in an aid convoy to Cuba in March to draw attention to the devastating impacts of the ongoing US blockade. He was detained alongside other activists at the Miami airport upon his return from Havana.

Last summer, Smalls was detained by Israeli forces and reportedly assaulted in their custody after joining a freedom flotilla mission which aimed to break the brutal blockade of Gaza.

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"Amazon is heavily invested in this genocide [in Palestine]," Smalls said in a video message projected onto the facade of Bezos' Madison Square Park penthouse ahead of the Met Gala.

"They invest $7.2 billion into Project Nimbus, a project that is being used to fund, empower the technology that is being used to surveil and target innocent Palestinians," the statement continued, referencing a cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.

"Now you're going to have the Met Gala where you're going to be surrounded by all these elites and billionaires and A-listers when you have poverty right outside on the streets. We gotta remind ourselves that it's more of us than it is of them."

A Reuters photographer captured Smalls at Monday's protest with a sign reading: "Amazon refuses to negotiate a contract with its union at JFK8. It's been over 1,500 days! I spent five days in Israeli prison because Amazon invests in genocide!!!"