Union Town

synopsis

We owe the speedy delivery of food and electronics to an army of exhausted people who face extreme heat and the risk of being sacked due to work-related injuries. In the United States, many of them have lost their patience. Out on the streets and during strike pickets outside Amazon and UPS warehouses, two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple captures the open conflict between New York’s couriers, drivers, warehouse workers and their corporate bosses. This raw account of the impact of algorithms on the labour market and workers’ lives clearly demonstrates why, in the era of the gig economy, trade union solidarity remains one of the few ways to effectively counter the pressure exerted by multinational corporations.

“I found that these are people who are not going to lay down or allow people to walk all over them from UPS, from Amazon and from the deliveristas. They were strong, they were going to fight the best fight that they could, whether they won or they lost certain things.” — Barbara Kopple, The Hollywood Reporter

Source: Barbara Kopple on Her New Labor Documentary, 'Union Town'

biography

Barbara Kopple (1946) is one of the leading figures in American social documentary filmmaking. As the director of the Oscar-winning documentaries Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) and American Dream (1990), she has spent over 50 years focusing on social justice, the trade union movement and the stories of people in crisis situations.

film details

director:	Barbara Kopple
producer:	Barbara Kopple, Peter Palandjian, Hannes Hosp
photography:	Timothy Grucza, Rachel Beth Anderson
editing:	Francisco Bello, Hannes Hosp, Deborah Peretz
music:	Jongnic Bontemps