
In some analysis, the act of Staten Islands workers voting to democratize their workplace during the spring of 2022 is considered to be amongst the most remarkable events that have occurred in the US economy for almost a century, which is somewhat justified given that they were the first instance of American workers at an Amazon facility voting to unionize.
The workers of the JFK8 warehouse of Amazon were able to support for union representation, after getting organized by the amazon labor union, because of the use of the Global anti-war David and Goliath imagery and it was equally encouraging to note that grassroots anti-war slogans still stand some chances of beating the evil concentration of employers, management intimidation, and a range of other obstacles to the construction of a new institution
The conflict was fueled by power, and at the massive employee lead campaign of over 8000 employees where some of the employees then were ready to unionize against the collective, showcased the campaign as a success even though bringing about the unions was in areas that the activists had not previously been to while also placing them in a never ending legal battle that was a source of stress for Amazon that as of today has still not recognized or sat down around table with ALU to discuss contract issues oras as it is called, this is the legal anti-union campaigning, the union that was about to be formed around us.
Brett Story,the director of The Hottest August, along with Stephen Maing who edited Crime + Punishment, presents a visually engaging account of how ALU rise to form a Union at the SLAP centre enabling a pivotal event in American history. The multi-dimensional construction of the storyline incorporates the Staten island workers’ urge not only to defeat the corporate giant but also gain a Union.
The film is not made in a talking head fashion but it does have an intimate moment in its narrating of the events that transpired in the hope to unionize during the making of the film as well as union, which sometimes becomes spicy due to its cutting its editing and rhythms. Right at the early scenes, the story shows Mazing and Sayne merging footage of Jeff Bestos driving one of the rockets he developed through Blue Origin, with other tired Amazon workers arriving for their shifts, thus highlighting the logistics marvel a company can be while also showcasing the human factor that are often omitted in the overly ambitious and contextless statements from reporters about the what aeomsus plans are.
Considering the span of three years in filming the documentary, it portrays Maing and Story to reveal the price that comes in the result of on-demand approaches under what can be deemed appalling as working conditions as the Amazon Assembly plants are.
Owing to unfettered control, stubbornness, and absence of free time, these are the conditions. Amazon has safe and responsible files; files that have served the company to bury former and existing workers without a shred of politeness.
The fact that they intend to go against a unionization effort might easily get them into trouble is just one of the downsides of this. Additionally, Amazon is very much unilaterally applying antiunion measures that in addition to many other things already cost hundreds of millions, such as mandatory meetings that are being implemented in certain states such as New York where this practice is out of use; Always on the edge of losing their job along with the rest of the people in the room who do not want to participate in union activities.
As Story and Maing’s film advocates, big cargo ships do not just move across sea lanes with the speed of a snail and dock at already echoing union architecture, skilled in dissolving union after union – in the case of the film we are examining here. However, this particular film does not dismiss this idea entirely either, with caution though, as it addresses the relations of the actors involved – in this case the trade unionists – as being proactively useful in changing the scenario in a violent setting.
One of the more captivating videos, filmed at the headquarters of Amazon, inconspicuously captures what is basically a captive audience meeting: one of the meetings invariably features a message displayed on a screen along the lines of “We need you to do the following three simple things: be informed, inquire, and do not support the union” and it is left to ALU organizers, who often hold up Amazon managers long enough to make the case.
Chris Smalls, also known as an ALU leader, is regarded as the main face of the documentary ‘Union’ although the tagline for the ALU leader does not include the word leader as he does take part in the document.
The time period in which the Union was set, Chris Smalls was the face of the movement alongside being an activist for the Covid-19 PPE equipment as well as being scheduled to launch the company. Chris Smalls was a single parent to three children which pushed himself into activism. He is the kind of person who is passionate about his soldiers, as he calls them- and in times when things grow heated between the unions he knows how, when it’s needed, to be in the front as well.
Mason’s film, for example, ponders the question of why within the same context people are tearing apart tensions that are most likely driven towards the same objective. Thus, how do the slightly overlapping worlds of a white college graduate, Madeline, who wants to contribute in the skills she has been trained with and the older Latina resident, Natalie, who at this point in time had been living in her car for several years. Chris, a white male activist organizer’s rationale for gearing up to be arrested by New York police is a joke, according to Natalie, as Chris says he does it to show them the struggle for unionization. Finally, it is that ambivalence towards the ALU – first, her grievances against the leadership of the movement and second, the disdain for the hope of the big unions to come in breathing down her neck – that formed part of her ultimate decision make to quit the movement. It speaks to the idea that people are extremely diverse in their motives and that the type of paralysis characterized as “cataclysmic victory” typical of other, similar “currents” are as such bound to happen.
The movie “Union” delves deep into the internal conversations regarding management, leadership, and organization which the ALU must have been engaged within due to successfully winning the first vote for unionism and the failed attempt to unionize a second warehouse after the first one. But due to the enthusiasm and determination of Smalls and the whole campaign team, JFK8 got unionized although many will perceive the campaign as an ordinary people’s movement and the result as depicted in the movie. This is why in the movie, there are no overly zealous politicians that try to push their radical agenda, and the idea of making Smalls the hero of socialists in the sense of portraying everyone else in a negative light is also not done because the social movement didn’t take place in isolation.
The unionization vote footage plays an important part in the latter parts of the movie as it showcases the sheer effort and necessity required as made clear for everyone in the audience. It is fair to say without a doubt that ALU organizers were indeed heroes. However, after winning a mere battle against Amazon who were stepping on every worker’s right and their achievements goes on to showcase extreme failure instead of a victorious headline, or rather what the film “Union” says.
In the documentary, the film showcases how people from all over the world feel about their role in the construction of the world in the case history, and than Unions increasingly become a WarZone.
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