Pink Asparagus

By Sara Abdul

They [corporations and billionaires] have the money! They have the ability to make it a better place for everyone!

Barbara Kopple’s latest is, as expected, an urgent and timely plea to workers to unite and resist being treated like modern slaves, as one UPS worker tells audiences in an interview. The film documents three interconnected New York labour struggles. The first is that of UPS, a company that first saw labour gains with the Part-Time America Won’t Work! movement in the late 90s. The second is that of Amazon workers, who have been publicly organizing towards unionization for years (the roots of which are documented by Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s Union). Both of these are supported by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, an organization dedicated to supporting workers who want to unionize their workplace. While the film does glorify them despite their insistence on being a Brotherhood in a society where patriarchal values drive the capitalist exploitation of workers, their contributions are very charming. They are the light at the center of the struggle. The final one, unsupported by the Teamsters but more successful this year than shown in the film thanks to the efforts of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is the struggle against the mistreatment and exploitation of food deliveristas. Kopple highlights how gruesome day-to-day working conditions can get for delivery people as they brave unpredictable traffic, dangerous weather and are under constant threat of thievery and vandalism.

Despite UPS settling, CEO Carol Tomé, a natural villain with a soulless smile, explained early on that she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She boasted that her office famously had a copy of military strategist Sun Tzu’s Art of War, a football helmet and a pair of boxing gloves, giving a literal meaning to the phrase “punching down.” If only the people who had the money to fix the world could just surrender world peace without a fight! Like a true billionaire coward, despite all of these strength symbols and her robust team of lawyers, she suggests to an interviewer that the Teamsters are brutal and unprofessional for going to the media and insisting the contract negotiation be conducted publicly. She only puffs out her chest and cowers when met with real demands, because she knows who runs that company and it isn’t her. One of the most chilling images of the film is Tomé’s eyes wide at the screen, frighteningly giddy about how few needs robots have as a way to explain why she cut 48k jobs after the historic contract negotiation just a couple of years prior. Smile, Tomé: you’re on camera!

Food app deliveristas make an average of $7 an hour, and often even less; in the film, we follow a delivery biker who makes $3.50 the first hour of his shift. These workers were often fired by their algorithm with no explanation or chance of appeal due to inactivity on the platform  (which was typically a result of severe injury). The technology of the food delivery app was seen as a way to dehumanize these workers and obscure their struggle. Even if they clocked full-time hours, they could be fired without explanation immediately. 

Amazon deliverers are paid by an independent subcontracting company, MJB Logistics, meaning that the workers spend their lives moving Amazon product without being given the type of stability or salary promised to their office staff. Tens of thousands of Amazon warehouse and delivery staff have been injured, and some killed, on shift, and yet Amazon has not improved working conditions or worker compensation. 

These three struggles also embody the unionization process and highlight the fear tactics companies can use to divide workers and obscure what’s best for them. One of the most shocking numbers the film leaves us with is that Amazon has spent 26 million dollars on anti-union consultants. Though the US National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) has ordered Amazon to meet with the Teamsters, the company refuses and postpones, as its profits will plummet irreparably if the company needs to start humanizing employees. 

What’s particularly striking is the role of technology in dehumanizing workers by overwriting and delegitimizing their needs. It’s deeply saddening that even when there is a shred of success – a UPS that needs to pay a living wage – technological developments driven by the billionaire class can offset the progress by replacing workers outright or firing them via large language models. What do we do when even the crumbs that once trickled down are now invested in anti-human technologies? The government’s silence is deafening, with the NLRB only becoming involved after low-income people have picketed, starved, faced injury and begged for ages just to be given enough money to pay their rent. It becomes particularly angering when seeing a film like this, so focused on the realities of what is increasingly the average American. What is a government office for labour for, if not to stop Amazon, the most dehumanizing workplace, from making violent profits off the backs of ordinary people? This film is heartbreaking but crucial in showing us that we need to stand together against large, heartless companies, and against their increasingly sophisticated techno-weaponry. Kopple also shows us a series of fearful picket-line crossers, intrigued by the movement, but frightened by what capitalism affords to those who try to speak up. These are the people we’re trained to be, the ones we need to be out of necessity, but also the people we should try to be less, so we can move that fear onto those who stole the world from us.

Like one of the film’s activists says astutely, “Nobody can [truly] get ahead alone; it’s done in community!”

Union Town plays at TIFF on September 15, 17 and 20.