Film review:‘Union’ portrays Amazon Labor Union’s road to victory

The recently released film “Union” depicts one of the most important contemporary victories for the U.S. labor movement: the union election win at Amazon’s JFK8 “fulfillment center” in Staten Island, New York.

The powerful and revealing story of the Amazon Labor Union’s success in April 2022 received a Special Jury Award for the Art of Change at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Film critics in publications such as The Guardian and The New York Times praised the documentary.

Nevertheless, being a film about the class struggle, “Union” has not been picked up by a distributor. Directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story have encountered difficulties trying to find theaters willing to screen it — just as they encountered difficulties shooting the film, sometimes being chased off Amazon’s property.

Footage shot throughout the course of the union campaign shows the hard, day in and day out work of organizing under Amazon’s repressive eye. Chris Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labor Union and its first president, was fired for leading a walkout in 2020 when the company refused to provide personal protective equipment, putting workers in danger of contracting COVID-19.

He and other ALU leaders are shown devoting long hours to the task of organizing. They stand out in bitter cold and blazing heat, handing out leaflets, serving free food and even giving out free marijuana.

Smalls, Derrick Palmer and other ALU leaders also talk to Amazon workers on Zoom about the union. Workers describe the terrible working conditions and the pay that doesn’t cover all of their bills. Some of them are living in their cars. Others have a two-hour commute to get to work. Amazon employees are frequently injured, sometimes even killed on the job.

The degree of surveillance is reminiscent of the auto industry before it was unionized. But now the army of human spies has been replaced by non-human algorithms that can issue a pink slip if a worker’s performance is deemed sub-par.

A bottom-up organizing campaign

The ALU built the one-on-one relationships with workers that are crucial to winning a union election, especially under the atmosphere of fear, intimidation and misinformation cultivated by Amazon.

In one scene the gutsy union supporters interrupt the company’s mandatory captive audience meeting, orchestrated by Amazon to plug voting “no” in the union representation election.

Even police brutality did not thwart the union drive after Smalls, Brett Daniels and Jason Anthony were arrested for trespassing on Amazon property while engaging in legal union activity. Daniels and Anthony were still Amazon employees.

By now ALU supporters are feeling pushed to their limits from all the pressure and exhaustion that goes with organizing. Nevertheless, the ALU beat the odds, winning the vote by close to a two-to-one margin!

In April 2022, JFK8 became the first unionized Amazon facility in the U.S. The audience in Cleveland applauded when the election outcome was announced in the film.

Supporters are presented many times in the film, from various unions to other activist organizations, including Workers World Party. WWP members are shown attending rallies and phone banking from the party’s office.

ALU joins the Teamsters

After the win in the union election, Amazon filed over two dozen charges against the ALU and even the National Labor Relations Board, charging illegal interference in the election. The NLRB threw out every single charge. Rather than sit down and negotiate a first contract, Amazon appealed the NLRB ruling and has stalled negotiations.

Close to the end of the film, it is mentioned that the union leadership has split, with a faction opposed to Smalls and other African-American ALU leaders.

In March of 2023, WWP First Secretary Larry Holmes wrote, “A hugely important issue that may be getting lost in all of this is that the ALU has been, since its inception, a Black-led union in a company that employs largely Black and Brown workers. If the political importance of this is underestimated or negated, it can only have negative consequences.” (workers.org/2023/03/70079/)

Since the film was completed, new officers of the ALU were elected, replacing Smalls, Palmer and others.

The other major development this year is that the ALU is now affiliated with the Teamsters union, becoming ALU-IBT Local 1 and representing all 8,000 workers at JFK8. This will give the union much-needed resources.

Regardless, the union win at Amazon in 2022 still deserves to be loudly celebrated. Any unionist or progressive activist lucky enough to live in a city where the film is being shown should make a point of seeing “Union.”

To find a showing go to unionthefilm.com.