In the shadow of Amazon’s towering influence, a group of workers dared to envision a different future – one where they held real power in the workplace. Their improbable journey, captured in the new documentary “Union”, reveals the immense challenges and transformative potential of bottom-up labor organizing in an age of unchecked corporate dominance.
The Birthplace of a Movement
The story unfolds at Amazon’s sprawling Staten Island warehouse, where grueling conditions and dehumanizing surveillance pushed workers to a breaking point. “We were just bodies to them, robots in human form,” recalls one employee in the film. Amid the pandemic, hazards intensified, but Amazon refused to take basic safety precautions.
Frustrations boiled over in March 2020 when workers, led by Chris Smalls, staged a walkout demanding protective gear and hazard pay. Amazon’s response was as swift as it was punitive: they promptly fired Smalls. But rather than retreat, he resolved to fight back and formed the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
David vs. Goliath
Taking on Amazon was a daunting prospect. The corporate titan had a long record of suppressing unionization through surveillance, intimidation, and even alleged illegal retaliation. “Union” lays bare the full extent of Amazon’s anti-union arsenal: a flood of propaganda, mandatory meetings preaching against collective action, and public smear campaigns painting organizers as “thugs”.
Against this onslaught, the ALU had scant resources beyond their conviction and solidarity. While established unions snubbed their campaign as a long shot, Smalls and his scrappy crew of organizers persisted through a tenacious grassroots operation. They set up shop at a bus stop to engage coworkers, blanketed the warehouse with flyers, and slowly built a network of support.
Rethinking Unionism
Beyond taking on Amazon, the ALU challenged conventional unionism itself. In an era of dwindling membership and political clout, many unions have grown distant from the shop floor. According to one expert in “Union”: “Established unions have renounced class warfare, while corporations wage it relentlessly against workers.” The ALU, with its worker-driven model, representated a radical departure.
We had to throw out the traditional union playbook. This was about building real relationships, worker to worker. Earning trust through action.
– Chris Smalls, ALU President
The film captures the messiness of this bottom-up approach – the debates, missteps, and conflicts inherent to any democratic undertaking. Tensions flare around Smalls’ unilateral style, even as his charisma holds the operation together. But by wearing its imperfections openly, the ALU demonstrates the hard work of forging true working-class solidarity.
Redefining Working Class Power
The backdrop to the ALU’s struggle is four decades of erosion of the labor movement and the working class as a political force. Union membership has plummeted, with just one in ten U.S. workers now unionized. Many feel abandoned by the Democratic Party, once seen as labor champions. This vacuum has left an opening for right-wing figures like Donald Trump to court disaffected workers while pushing virulently anti-union policy.
Against this grim landscape, the ALU’s improbable triumph in forcing Amazon to the bargaining table represents a clarion call. It points to the power still dormant in the working class when organized from the ground up. While Amazon has dragged its feet on negotiating a contract, worker activism has spread to other warehouses, signal a potential for a more combative labor movement.
What the ALU shows is another kind of unionism is possible – one rooted in the workplace and led by rank-and-file workers. They’re redefining what it means to fight for working-class interests today.
– Jamie McCallum, sociologist and labor scholar
Uncharted Waters Ahead
The path forward for the ALU remains fraught with obstacles. Amazon has dug in for a prolonged battle, while the wider terrain for unions grows more hostile under the courts and politicians. But as “Union” powerfully demonstrates, a spark has been lit. Working people, pushed to the brink, are recognizing their own power and forging new tools to challenge inequality. However untested, these efforts may chart a new course for labor at a time of stark class divisions.
In the David and Goliath contest between workers and Amazon, the ALU faces towering odds. But in daring to sling stones at the corporate giant, they have already shifted the ground. For a labor movement at a crossroads, their grassroots militancy may point the way to renewal. The battle of Staten Island will reverberate in warehouses and shop floors for years to come.
