Brett Story and Stephen Maing like to emphasize the scale of the multinational corporation the labor organizers in Union are up against with images of the vast mechanisms that allow it to operate. In the opening shot of the documentary, which the two directed together, a container ship creeps into the frame, loaded with cargo, some of which will be fed into the enormous Staten Island warehouse around which the film is set. The first time we see the building, it looms out of the dark like a dystopian landmark, the Amazon logo an illuminated Joker’s grin on its side.
The glimpses we get of the inside, some shot on the sly by members of the Amazon Labor Union, are no less bleak, with workers crouched over conveyor belts in vast, fluorescent lit spaces. The film returns more than once to a shot of what looks like rolling shelves in an unoccupied room being moved around mechanically. The ALU team will, at a certain point in their battle to unionize, project messages reading, “You are not a number.
You are not disposable. You are a human being” on the side of the compound. It’s clear that the company, with its astounding turnover rate and algorithmically dictated conditions, would prefer its workers not be, but until technology allows for full automation, they’re going to treat their employees as component parts instead.
Union is a rare thing — a documentary that is undeniably political in its focus while being artful and observational in its approach. The idea that a d.
