Brett Story and Stephen Maing seek to underline the dimensions of a transnational corporation which the labor organizers in Union are competing against with visuals of the huge apparatus that enables it to function. In the opening shot of the film, which the two co-directed, a cargo ship enters a scene-some of the ship’s cargo will be used at the enormous Staten Island warehouse that serves as the film’s location. The second shot is the first one which comes into view, a huge warehouse, in which the viewer is fascinated by its size, and inhospitably protrudes into the dark like an evil edifice along with the grinning Joker of the Amazon Logo on its wall. Even the glimpses we get of the inside, some of which were filmed by Amazon Labor Union members in a rather furtive manner, are equally depressing, with workers’ figures hunched over endless conveyor belts in huge lit up halls. The film returns more than once to a shot of mechanized motion with a camera that appears to be shifting some modular wall shelves from one corner of the empty room to another in a rather unoccupied room. The ALU team will reach this point in their struggle with the employer’s bullying against unionization: “You are not a number. You are not disposable. You are a human being” they will project these messages onto the outer wall of the compound.
It is famous that the business, given its incredible turnover rate and conditions determined by algorithms, does not want its employees to be people, but until the time technology is capable of replacing the workers’ manually, they will treat the workers as parts to a whole.
Union is an unusual film, particularly given it focuses on politics, yet approaches the subject in a documentary-like fashion. It has become the norm that very few mentally challenged people would ever argue in this way, so few would consider it a valuable one, in fact, it is a sad norm for so many that it has somewhat suffocated the creativity that once was in the making of documentaries. Union’s very premise relies on the reverse of this philosophy – not everything has to be overstated, in fact the individuals within the film can do most of the work and visuals can be sufficient to communicate the story without words. Story’s previous film The Hottest August, too, is a magnet because of its concept and theme since it revolves around unusual bursts of interviews in the most extreme heat New York was facing at the time, which gives a great dimension to apocalyptic art, overall the film is darkly comic. Union is clearly driven by the narrative but still carries with it some of that heaviness in the atmosphere.
Maneuvering around this shot of cargo ships like smaller continents, transporting billions of goods across the ocean: we notice how one ship passes in front of another, which has the name “Capital” on its board. This is precisely the kind of detail that one should include in the composition, yet at the same time, it is so much on the nose that it becomes a very dry chuckle.
Union is not a film that otherwise has the advantage of much comedic effect, however, the subjects share a sense of togetherness which pulls them through their heavy tasks. The man in charge is Chris Smalls, a man who is married with children who was sacked from Amazon for advocating for better working conditions regarding the impact of COVID infection on the employees. He spends much of the film sitting outside JFK8, the site of his former employment, and serves clients who come to know the advantages of collective action. Chris and his co-workers, some to the present and some to the past Amazon employees and some professional organizers who come to assist in the union activities, have had it rough, having to wait for things to get done the hard way–building an ALU up from scratch (the ALU has recently become affiliated with the Teamsters). Chris, the public face of this campaign, has been ‘low-key famous’ as one of the workers gets surprised when she sees him for the first time but throughout the documentary, one will see not just a charismatic and devoted person but an impatient monster as well, which is what Chris is over the course of the film.
He and his team have mastered quite some skills but are still learning new ones through practice and while staying in close contact with one another on Zoom or in person now and then we see them argue, motivate, strategize and sometimes even fight with one another as pressures intensify.
The pressure is high as the spring of 2021 Union began, but now it resembles a contemporary techno-thriller where underdogs take on a giant company. Union has some incredible instances of discourse as when ALU members are shown and tell the audience to be quite as they attend a Union-busting meeting and begin to win a grumpy person over. But it also illustrates the toll that this type of work takes, and how the world tire one of the volunteers, who has been living in her vehicle for more than three years, and one of the volunteers, who was imprisoned by the authorities. Union is a fantastic victory for the labor movement but is also clever enough to not conclude on that note and goes on to mention the best weapon of an organization such as Amazon is procrastination. But there are people, such as these filmmakers, who are present to ensure the world attends to their activities.
There is a tension caused by the wind and the relentless camera which captures an ALU volunteer attempting to erect a tent at one point, the woman almost appears to be in distress and the filmmakers rush to assist her, asking if help is required. Union is a work of great documentary character, but it always speaks to us about the people between and behind the camera.
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