With Union Town, master documentarian Barbara Kopple completes a trilogy she began with the Oscar winning documentaries Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) and American Dream (1990).
From the coal mines of Kentucky to the factories of the Midwest, Kopple shifts her focus to New York City, a so-called ‘union town’. Her intensive investigation of class struggle becomes a sharp callback to ancient times, when the lower class was robbed of their humanity by their unending servitude.
Kopple’s formidable persistence in her mission once again exposes the endless courage of the human spirit. Deeply invested in presenting raw, empathic stories of the unsung workers who toil to keep the American economy running, here she profiles crucial labour battles as they unfold. They involve workers from UPS and Amazon, as well as deliveristas for DoorDash and GrubHub, the latter populated heavily by migrant workers.
These are some of the most vulnerable members of society: They represent the bottom percentage of American citizenry. As the film informs us, many of the people in this category are one paycheque away from bankruptcy.
Hired as independent contractors by the immensely powerful companies that rule the delivery business, they are connected by their complete lack of rights. They have no control over their working conditions. The companies make sure that they remain individual entities, and in fact, pit employees against each other, especially when it comes to organizing. Although these workers are vital to the economy, they have no voice, no power, no choice.
Tightly constructed with a careful weave of interviews and profiles, her expert command of the vérité style invites the audience to experience these struggles. Beginning in 2023, she closely follows these groups and individuals over three years. Kopple reveals each person’s bleak circumstances but also documents greater attempts to organize. She follows the UPS Teamsters’ efforts to help their own workers and to expand efforts to people in other companies.
This is post-COVID America. By some twisted logic, workers’ rights seemed to erode during the pandemic, when people suddenly found themselves jobless. Corporations seized upon this hopelessness. At the same time, average citizens in society seemed to look upon unionized workers with suspicion, as if their salaries and benefits were undeserved. These workers were seen as greedy. The clarion call sounded: We’re all lucky to just have a job, any job, right?
There’s an intense struggle that arises here as the massive corporations either quash all efforts at solidarity or as suspicions arise among the workers themselves. The fear of losing their jobs, their desperation really, results in a terror to speak up. These companies, of course, seize on that to their advantage. It’s disgusting how many millions these corporations spend on stopping the unionization efforts. This is, after all, money that could be used to improve working conditions.
Kopple’s film, as with her previous works, approaches the workers’ struggles with profound compassion. Her expertise with the verité approach allows her to capture individuals at their most candid. People come to trust her. Through the painfully intimate interviews, the audience experiences the true-to-life tragedies at the heart of American society.
She profiles a young man who must sleep in his car because he has to work split shifts to make up the hours normally worked in one full day. He has no time to go home to sleep in between. A UPS worker struggles on the job with a bad knee, but must nevertheless regularly deliver large bulky, packages up long sets of stairs.
We meet the immigrants working as deliveristas who struggle with the language and are most helpless: They tend to be the ones terminated without explanation. Not only do they face the pressure of fending for themselves, but they are charged with caring for their families in their home countries. Now, in Trump’s second term, they face the threat of ICE detention and deportation.
These are people we know: Friends, family, neighbours. These are the individuals we encounter and sometimes ignore as we receive our own deliveries. We’re often too excited by what they bring to notice them.
Kopple is wise enough to underscore these hardships with a counter view of the corporations and, in this way, unabashedly reveals their entitled behaviour. Amazon headquarters shuts down the building (literally) and posts security guards at the entrance when the workers simply want to deliver a letter. But when she weaves in television footage of Carol Tomé, the CEO of UPS talking about how much she loves robot workers (“They don’t get sick!”), that’s when we are witnesses to true evil.
In Union Town, Barbara Kopple once again reveals her undeniable gift as a documentarian. Her strategy here is impeccable as she actualizes Maya Angelou’s saying: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Kopple categorically leaves no doubt that the power divide is real, and it is getting bigger.