Kopple's 'Union Town' Premieres at Camden Festival — SkimNews
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- Barbara Kopple returned to labor documentary filmmaking with "Union Town," which just held its U.S. premiere at the Camden International Film Festival in Maine after bowing at Venice earlier in September; the film is her third major work on American workers, following her Oscar-winning "Harlan County U.S.A." (1976) and "American Dream" (1991).
- Union Town tracks three labor battles in New York City — at UPS, at Amazon, and among "deliveristas" who make food runs for apps like DoorDash — with Teamsters lead organizer Antonio Rosario, a veteran of a 1997 UPS strike, leading the Amazon union effort in the northeast.
- Deliveristas face the harshest conditions of the three groups, working year-round on bicycles in all weather and relying heavily on tips; the film documents Victor Hidalgo, a 24-year-old pharmacy delivery worker killed in 2024 when an FDNY vehicle struck his bike, whose aunt urged Kopple to film his funeral so "these things" aren't forgotten.
- DoorDash reached a nearly $17 million settlement in New York in 2025 after the Attorney General's office found the company misled customers into believing tips went directly to Dashers while actually using them to offset guaranteed pay.
- Union participation in America has dropped by about half over the past four decades, but Kopple insists unions are essential: "if you don't have them, you don't have anything."
- Distribution for "Union Town" is "too soon to tell," per Kopple; Autlook is handling worldwide sales, while the 2024 Amazon-Staten Island union documentary "Union" previously struggled to find U.S. distribution because Prime Video wouldn't carry it (it now streams via Criterion).
- Kopple uses Rosario illustrating worker solidarity at his dinner table with a bundle of sticks — a single stick breaks, but together they cannot — to teach his young sons the lesson: "It's people who have your back. It's people who will help you and it gives you a sense of strength that you can change."
Why it matters: Kopple's return to labor documentary filmmaking lands as recent high-profile union wins at UPS and Amazon's Staten Island warehouse show visible momentum, while the half-century decline in U.S. union participation documented in the film makes the deliverista tip-theft scandal — settled by DoorDash for $17 million — and a delivery worker's on-the-job death the kinds of human stakes that can move a casual viewer to act, or simply tip better.
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