''Union'' is a 2024 American documentary film, directed by

Brett Story Brett Story is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, most noted for her 2016 film ''The Prison in Twelve Landscapes''. The film was awarded a $5,000 Special Jury Citation in the Best Canadian Feature Documentary category at the 2016 Hot Docs Canadia ...

and

Stephen Maing Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; h ...

. It follows the

Amazon Labor Union The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) is an independent labor union specifically for Amazon (company), Amazon workers, created on April 20, 2021. On April 1, 2022, the Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, JFK8, backed by the ALU became the firs ...

as they seek to unionize

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

's JKF8 Warehouse in

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 ...

. It had its world premiere at the

2024 Sundance Film Festival The 2024 Sundance Film Festival will take place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023. Official Sections U.S. Dramatic Competition World Cinema Dramatic Competition U.S. ...

on January 21, 2024, and is scheduled to be released on October 18, 2024, by Level Ground Productions.

Premise

The film follows former and current workers of

, as they form the

, and take on the company to form a union.

Production

In 2020, producers Samantha Curley and Mars Verrone contacted labor organizer

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 ...

to discuss making a documentary about his efforts to organize workers at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. Curley and Verrone brought on director

after seeing her short film ''CamperForce'', about Amazon's seasonal workforce. As Smalls and his fellow organisers formed the

and began a union drive at the warehouse, Story saw the opportunity to make a film about “a new generation of labor organizers, a generation that’s grown up entirely in the post-Reagan era of union decline and globalized corporate capital, and who would be learning, in real time, how to organize collectively and outside of mainstream union support”. Five months into production, Story invited

to co-direct the film. Together, they followed organizing efforts on

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

and on the ground in Staten Island, as well as internal efforts by Amazon to discourage employees from joining the union. They showed the film to participants in the project, in order to vet anything that could potentially be high-risk or fireable, with all of them responding well to the film. An interview with a union-buster was filmed but cut during post-production, in order to keep the film focused on the organizers. The film received grants from Catapult Film Fund, Field of Vision,

International Documentary Association International Documentary Association (IDA), founded in 1982, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre. Their major program areas are: Advocacy, Filmm ...

, Sundance Institute, NBCU Academy/

NBC News Studios NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's va ...

, Chicken & Egg Pictures and

Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

where it won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change. In June 2024, it was announced Level Ground Productions would self-distribute the film, setting an October 18, 2024, release.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 30319916 Films about activists Films about the labor movement Anonymous Content films American documentary films 2020s American films