The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions are excited to be co-hosting, alongside UnionAid, 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.

The Film Premiere screenings will be held in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin on 30th April at 6pm. The largest screening will be held in the Wellington at the Embassy Theatre.

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 and no institutional backing.

"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,” said NZCTU Secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges.

“The film captures the essence of grassroots campaigning and the power of collective action amidst the harsh realities of corporate dominance,” said Ansell-Bridges.

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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