Union
Directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing
On April 1, 2022 a group of ordinary workers made history when they did what everyone thought was impossible: they successfully won their election to become the very first unionized Amazon workplace in America. This feat would be extraordinary for any union, let alone the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), who did it with no prior organizing experience, no institutional backing, and a total budget of $120,000 raised on GoFundMe. Heralded as the most important win for labor since the 1930s, this highly cinematic documentary captures the ALU’s historic grassroots campaign to unionize thousands of their co-workers from day one of organizing.
Up against a corporate superpower and with legal protections at a drastic low for workers, all odds are against the ALU. Yet this rag-tag ensemble remains unswayed in their beliefs in collective action and the dignity and power of the working-class. Short-listed for the 2025 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, UNION is a true David vs. Goliath epic tale.
This film will be followed by the 9 minute short film follow up called “Local One” about the growing movement.
Filmmakers' Bios
Brett Story
Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose work pushes the formal boundaries of political cinema. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at Sundance, New York Film Festival, CPH-DOX, and IDFA. Her most recent feature documentary, Union(2024), co-directed with Stephen Maing, premiered at Sundance 2024 where it won a Special Jury Prize. Union has screened at over 100 festivals worldwide and was shortlisted for an Academy Award.
Brett has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Sundance Institute, and was named one of Variety’s 10 Documentary Filmmakers to Watch. In both 2020 and 2025 she was nominated for a Cinema Eye Award for Best Director.
Stephen Maing
Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York City. His most recent film UNION captures the historic efforts by workers to unionize the first Amazon fulfillment center. Co-directed with Brett Story, it won a Special Jury Award for The Art of Change at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Maing’s feature documentary CRIME + PUNISHMENT which he directed, filmed and edited is an immersive cinéma vérité account of a group of minority whistleblower NYPD officers. It won a 2018 Sundance Special Jury Award, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films, HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, directed, filmed and edited over five years, and THE SURRENDER, have screened internationally and were released on POV and Field of Vision, respectively.