“Union”: New Film Looks at Worker Organizers Who Took On Jeff Bezos & Unionized First Amazon Warehouse

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to consider a labor case with major implications for the right of workers to organize. YAPP USA Automotive Systems has asked the Supreme Court to block a National Labor Relations Board case that alleges the company illegally interfered with a union election at a Michigan plant. The company is challenging the case in part by claiming the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional. More than 20 other companies, including Amazon — one of the most powerful companies on Earth — have filed similar lawsuits challenging the National Labor Relation Board’s power.

Now a new film documents how Amazon workers at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island made history by voting to form the first Amazon union in U.S. history in 2022, the same year Amazon spent more than $14 million to quash union drives by the company’s workers. An NLRB investigation later found Amazon illegally prohibited them from distributing pro-union materials. The documentary is called Union. This is its trailer.

CHRIS SMALLS: We’ve got to continue to fight, because this company has not been held accountable.

AFP REPORTER: It’s Chris Smalls. He was fired when he went outside and protested.

CHRIS SMALLS: You make Amazon $638 million a day. It’s time we get paid our fair share.

Cancel all your plans, unless it’s family-related. If it ain’t family-related, then you have to attend. Like, you’ve got to.

There’s nothing that can stop our momentum. The only thing that’s going to stop us is if we stop ourselves.

Right now Amazon is on their high horse, and we want to punch them in the face.

AMAZON WORKER 1: We should just go in, occupy that training room and don’t even let them hold a meeting.

AMAZON WORKER 2: Stop, stop, stop. Relax.

AMAZON SECURITY: Can we talk outside?

CHRIS SMALLS: Hey! Hey, you know that’s illegal, right? You’re not supposed to be doing that.

AMAZON WORKER 3: I’m about to give up!

CHRIS SMALLS: This is the long haul, right? This is the marathon.

MADELINE WESLEY: This is our shot to make things better.

AMY GOODMAN: The demands of workers at Amazon’s JFK8 Staten Island warehouse included better pay, benefits and working conditions. In this clip from the film Union, an Amazon union organizer interrupts a mandatory anti-union meeting the company organized.

AMAZON VIDEO: We’re asking you to do three simple things: get the facts, ask questions and vote no to the union.

AMAZON EMPLOYEE RELATIONS SPECIALIST: So, that’s the ultimate thing. Remember, your signature is worth something, so protect your signature.

NATALIE MONARREZ: Hi. My name is Natalie. I’m a sort inductor on the ship dock, and I’m actually one of the organizers for the Amazon Labor Union. Just to let you know, the leader of the ALU is Chris Smalls. He was fired last April when he went outside and protested because we were not getting PPE inside the factory, even though we were processing it for the rest of the world. OK? So, him and his friends that also worked here got fired. OK? So, when I say that we put a union out there that is worker-led and is Amazon employees, we have all of you in mind. It’s workers protecting workers and standing up for workers.

AMAZON EMPLOYEE RELATIONS SPECIALIST: Excuse me.

NATALIE MONARREZ: No. And you guys — no, no, no. I want to say one more thing. You talk about $1,200. Union busters make $2,000 to $3,000 per day, paid by Amazon, to sell everybody out.

AMY GOODMAN: A clip from the new documentary Union, which opens theatrically in New York this Friday at IFC Center. It’s directed by the acclaimed filmmakers Brett Story and Steve Maing. Maing joins us now, along with Connor Spence, who’s in the film, now president of the Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1, a member of the Teamsters. Earlier this year, the ALU affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to become ALU–IBT.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! So, Steve, talk about the significance of this film dropping or opening now.

STEPHEN MAING: Well, first off, thank you so much for having us. We’re huge fans of you and Juan.

You know, this is a film that updates a narrative about labor organizing that many have been talking about. You know, we saw a resurgence in labor organizing after almost 50 years of decline in union density. And this was a group of workers in Staten Island, New York, who got together and decided that enough was enough, right? These were workers that have often been called the invisible working class. And that was because they have been — largely, long been voiceless and disempowered from pushing back and were, in many ways, considered by traditional unions unorganizable. This was a trillion-dollar company that they took on and, in an incredible feat of organizing and determination, were able to win in a near landslide against Amazon in April of 2022.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Steve, given that your film centers on labor rights and so many of the streaming platforms these days are controlled by corporations with their own embattled labor histories, like Apple, for instance, or Amazon, what was the response of the distribution platforms? And what did you have to do to get the film out?

STEPHEN MAING: Well, you know, we had the great honor of premiering the film at Sundance, actually receiving an award there. You know, we were one documentary among 15,000 that applied to get into that festival. And despite that, we’ve also had the distinct honor of experiencing what a lot of doc makers have been experiencing in this industry, which is, you know, in an attempt to distribute a film that falls into the genre of political cinema, we’re dealing with a very corporatized, myopic industry that does not necessarily value narratives like this as much. And so, we, much like the Amazon Labor Union, have been charting a more independent course to distribute the film on our own. And it’s, in many ways, been a more gratifying and exciting process.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another clip. In this scene from Union, three Amazon union organizers, including Chris Smalls, who would become the first ALU president, are handcuffed, detained by New York police for being on Amazon warehouse property.

AMAZON SECURITY: Hey, Chris, like I said, man, I’m going to ask — you and anyone who’s not an Amazon employee has to leave the premise, please. Anyone who is an Amazon employee, I am not speaking to you. You guys are free to stay.

CHRIS SMALLS: OK. But are we in a — are we in a parking lot that says “visitor,” right?

AMAZON SECURITY: You’re currently trespassing on Amazon property if you are not an Amazon associate.

CHRIS SMALLS: Right. I know that.

AMAZON SECURITY: So, anyone here who’s not an Amazon associate —

CHRIS SMALLS: But you didn’t answer the question, though. That sign over there says “visitor,” right? I’m a visitor.

POLICE OFFICER 1: With who? What are you doing?

CHRIS SMALLS: I’m visiting with him. They work here.

POLICE OFFICER 1: How long have you been here for, you’d say?

CHRIS SMALLS: Few minutes.

POLICE OFFICER 1: So, you’re refusing to leave?

CHRIS SMALLS: No, I’m going to leave when he leaves.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Are you refusing to leave?

CHRIS SMALLS: I said, no, I’m going to leave when he leaves.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Are you leaving? Yes or no?

CHRIS SMALLS: Yes. I said yes.

POLICE OFFICER 2: If you’re not leaving within the next two minutes, you’re going to be arrested.

POLICE OFFICER 1: You have two minutes. You have two minutes.

CHRIS SMALLS: Y’all are not enforcing no law. Y’all are just wasting your time.

POLICE OFFICER 1: You have 30 seconds, or you’re getting arrested. It’s very simple.

CHRIS SMALLS: I’m going to get arrested? How am I going to get arrested for? For what? For what? You want to arrest me for what? Hey, look, man.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Right now you’re obstructing police business right now. Back up.

CHRIS SMALLS: No. No, man. Get up out of here. No! What the —

AMAZON WORKER 1: He’s a worker! He works here!

AMAZON WORKER 2: Leave him alone!

AMAZON WORKER 3: What are you doing? What are you doing?

POLICE OFFICER 3: Hold on. Hold on.

POLICE OFFICER 4: Step off. Step off. Step off. Stop.

AMAZON WORKER 2: Get your hands off of him.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Chris Smalls, who would become the president, first president of American [sic] Labor Union, was arrested there. He had already been fired as an Amazon worker for protesting the lack of COVID protocols.

We’re joined by Connor Spence, who is the second president of the American [sic] Labor Union. You also were fired — of the, rather, the Amazon Labor Union. You also were fired. You were there at that moment.

CONNOR SPENCE: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how Amazon cracked down on all of you. You still remain today, this Staten Island warehouse, the only unionized warehouse, Amazon unionized warehouse, in the country.

CONNOR SPENCE: Yeah. I mean, we are probably the most surveilled workforce anywhere. But —

AMY GOODMAN: One-point-five million workers?

CONNOR SPENCE: Yeah. And when you’re in the warehouse, everything is tracked, every movement you make, the time you’re away from your station. And Amazon can really weaponize that against you once you start to unionize. They can find ways to fire you. They found a way to fire Chris when he was protesting the lack of safety protocols during the pandemic. They found a way to fire me for a policy that the NLRB now considers to be illegal and ordered them to rescind nationally. They have a lot of ways that they can retaliate against organizers.

And both Chris and I have, unfortunately, had the police called on us by Amazon, been arrested. Never goes anywhere, but it is an intimidation tactic they use. It’s a way they try to control the workforce and waste your time and prevent you from being able to organize and talk to people.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Connor, I wanted to follow up on that, because given the fact that Amazon has so many employees and they are usually in these huge fulfillment centers, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 workers in a place, why it’s been so difficult for organized labor to make any inroads other than in your fulfillment center, your warehouse, in terms of unionizing Amazon?

CONNOR SPENCE: Yeah. I would say, like, by design, basically, it’s built to be difficult to organize. The turnover in an Amazon warehouse, on average, is 150%. So, our campus on Staten Island alone churns through about — you know, there’s 10,000 workers, so it churns through about 15,000 New Yorkers every year. And that’s by design. That’s not an accident. The average worker stays about eight months before they quit, they’re fired by a computer, or they injure themselves. So, already, going in, like, that’s a difficult task to organize.

There’s a scene in the documentary where the first time that we had filed for an NLRB election, we needed to sign up 30% of the active employees of the workforce in order to have a sufficient showing of interest to get the NLRB to come do a union election at our warehouse. But by the time we submitted those cards, I think over a thousand of them were for employees that had been fired or quit since. So, already, it’s a huge task for any union to take on.

As far as what made us successful, I would say, you know, a lot of it was endurance. We had a model of organizing that was very much worker to worker. We were inside the warehouse building relationships with people, creating that sense of community. We started as an independent union, so we were basically a blank slate. There wasn’t much Amazon could do to union-bust or try to third-party and separate people from the union, which is a common tactic that these corporations often try to do. They try to third-party the union, make workers feel as though it’s something that they’re not a part of, they’re not responsible for. And so, I think a lot of things kind of aligned in our case that we were able to be victorious, when it’s clearly, really, a struggle to organize and unionize these warehouses.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 10 seconds. Why did you decide to affiliate with Teamsters?

CONNOR SPENCE: National organizing is too much for an independent union to do by ourselves. And if we want to have a chance of taking Amazon to the table, creating that pressure, there has to be national organizing.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. The film opens this week.

STEPHEN MAING: This Wednesday at IFC Center in New York City, and then across the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve Maing is co-director of Union. Connor Spence is president of the Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1.

Again, happy birthday to Juan González! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!