UnionAID And NZCTU Proudly Present The New Zealand Film Premiere Of UNION

UnionAID and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) are excited to announce they are hosting the New Zealand premiere of the groundbreaking documentary film, UNION - 2024 Sundance Festival Winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change.

UNION tells the inspiring story of a group of workers taking on one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies in the fight to unionise. The feat would be extraordinary for any union, let alone the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), who did it with no prior organising experience, no institutional backing, and a total budget of $120,000 raised on GoFundMe. The film captures the essence of grassroots campaigning and the power of collective action amidst the harsh realities of corporate dominance.

Melissa Ansell-Bridges, Secretary of the NZCTU, emphasised the relevance of the film in today’s labour environment: "At a time when ordinary workers are struggling to make ends meet, yet corporate profits soar, the story of the Amazon Labor Union demonstrates that the seemingly impossible can be achieved through determination and worker unity.”

The film's producers, Mars Verrone and Samantha Curley, stated: "Amazon is a lucid and prominent example of how mega-corporations thrive at the immediate expense of Black and brown Americans, and to the long-term detriment of us all. However, we do not consider Amazon to be an exceptionally bad transnational corporation - and that is the problem. Since long before the pandemic, our society has dehumanised and abused an entire class of people in the name of corporate profit margins and consumer convenience. While this story focuses on one warehouse at one company, we know that it is the story of every worker who has ever tried to improve their own circumstances against the odds."

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