Union is a comprehensive documentary about Amazon organizing that might not inspire you

by Everett Kehew

The act of unionizing a workplace is by nature a group effort. But in the case of the Amazon Labour Union (ALU), one personality was able to capture the spotlight.

New York native Chris Smalls became a media darling during the highly-publicized organizing drive of the Staten Island fulfillment centre in 2022.

Amazon executives deliberately tried to make him the face of the unionization efforts, saying that he was “not smart or articulate”. They soon found out that he is, in fact, both, and he became the closest thing to a celebrity that the left can claim.

It was no surprise, then, that his latest appearance in Toronto sold out within days. On March 4th, the seats of Innis Town Hall at the University of Toronto were packed for the screening of the new documentary Union, which tells the story of the ALU’s historic victory in Staten Island.

The screening, organized by the Spring Socialist Network, featured a talk and Q&A with the co-director, Canadian filmmaker Brett Story, and Chris Smalls himself.

The ALU’s story began with a walkout over lack of Covid-19 protections and built to a successful campaign that resulted in the first unionized Amazon warehouse in history.

They contended with nonstop pushback on the shop floor from their notoriously anti-union employer, and a laundry list of legal challenges, some of them still unresolved.

It is hard to believe that organizing an angry behemoth like Amazon is possible, especially for a grassroots, independent union like the ALU. The filmmakers embedded themselves with the ALU for years, capturing this drama up close and offering us a glimpse into the realities on the ground.

But while it shines as a record of the nitty gritty of organizing, the lessons it draws from that struggle are unclear, verging on defeatist.

The drama of Zoom meetings

Union is a treasure trove of the day-to-day minutia of organizing. I have never been so energized watching footage of Zoom meetings.

In an opening scene we see Chris Smalls waking up and getting his children ready for pandemic-era online school, then sitting down for a virtual briefing with his comrades. People check in, discuss tactics, get into arguments; it hit close to home for a lot of the people watching.

Depictions of organizing in action are hard to come by, and the filmmakers do a beautiful job of infusing even the most mundane virtual meetings with tension and purpose.

Most importantly, we see the organizers sitting in a tent outside the fulfillment centre, day in and day out. The tent is the setting for many of the film’s most impactful moments.

The filmmakers capture conversations with passing workers as the organizers hand out hot dogs and union certification cards; they capture late night discussions around the fire about the direction of the drive; they capture tense disagreements with Amazon officials and security staff as they attempt to intimidate the organizers.

The repeated use of shots of the tent conveys the tenacity of the organizers and the sometimes-monotonous reality of organizing.

Big wins to small fanfare

The film’s climax is the ALU’s victory at the Staten Island warehouse, a moment in which their hard work finally pays off. But in the next scene, Union takes a strange turn.

The cameras capture slow-motion footage of the organizers celebrating at an afterparty in someone’s apartment. They are shown giving each other hugs and sharing drinks, but the music is oddly melancholic and the mood is foreboding. The celebration feels like it occurring on the verge of a disaster.

Sure enough, the film then goes on to profile other Amazon organizing drives across the country, all of which end in failure. Although we witness their defeats, little time is spent showcasing these drives, and we don’t get the same detail and context as we did with the Staten Island warehouse. It is difficult, then, to draw lessons from these campaigns.

This tonal shift left me wondering what purpose the filmmakers had in mind when making Union. They seem too eager to temper the ALU’s victory with grim realities.

Documentation, not inspiration

Union will stand as the definitive chronicle of the ALU’s victory at Staten Island. Their victory is something that all workers, and especially Amazon workers, can look to for inspiration and lessons.

At the screening, we heard from a representative of Amazonians United Toronto, a group that is working to improve conditions for Amazon workers at fulfillment centres across the GTA. He spoke about seeing the ALU on the news and being inspired to organize his Scarborough warehouse.

The legacy of the ALU is not one of failure; it was an enormous win that has inspired a new generation of workers to take on their boss. To be an effective tool for mobilizing the working class, Union would have done well to tell those stories.