Factually! with Adam Conover - How Unions Beat Amazon with Stephen Maing and Brett Story

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Amazon workers are on strike! It’s no shock that employees are pushing back against the invasive, abusive, and grueling practices of one of the world’s largest corporations. What is surprising, though, is that they managed to form a union at all. Stephen Maing and Brett Story’s astonishing new documentary Union tells the inspiring story of how workers fought against all odds to claim victory over the corporate giant. This week, Adam talks with Stephen and Brett about the uphill battles these workers faced against Amazon—and the challenges they now face trying to find a distributor in Hollywood brave enough to release the film.SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's okay. I don't know anything. Hey there, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show again. You know, there is a seismic event happening in American labor right now. Because right now, as I speak, thousands of Amazon warehouse workers are on strike. And they are on strike because Amazon refuses to negotiate with them over anything at all. They are not even showing up at the negotiating table.

So those workers are for the first time ever taken to the streets, refusing to work, marching with picket signs for better wages and working conditions and their fundamental rights as workers. This is incredibly inspiring and it is a big fucking deal that has been a long time coming. It all started in 2022 when workers at Amazon's Staten Island warehouse successfully unionized for the first time ever. And you know, it's hard to overstate how impossible it was to believe that this would ever happen.

Because Amazon is the second largest employer in America, and its warehouses are known for their invasive and abusive working conditions. They churn through workers at an incredible weight, they surveil their movements, and Amazon knows that their conditions are awful. And so as a result, they spend millions every year on anti-union consultants

to stop their workers from organizing. And here's the craziest part. This drive at Amazon Staten Island Warehouse didn't start with one of America's big entrenched unions that had a lot of money and resources. No, it started with just a couple of workers who decided to try to form a union on their own. Christopher Smalls and Derek Palmer

had seen the insanity of Amazon's automated systems firing workers and denying benefits without cause and the insane stress it put on workers like them during the pandemic. So Chris Smalls decided to lead a walkout, but Amazon fired him for doing so. And so they decided to try to start a union on their own, the old fashioned way,

just by talking to other workers one-on-one and trying to win an election. But as they did that, Amazon waged a major campaign against them, harassing their fellow employees with texts and forcing them to attend anti-union meetings. And yet, despite all of that, despite the entire resources of a trillion dollar corporation

being leveled against them, in the spring of 2022, Chris and Derek and their colleagues won. They won a union election and won the very first union ever at an Amazon warehouse. It was one of the most inspiring stories in all of labor history, to be quite honest. And here's my favorite part. It turns out that the entire time they were waging this campaign, there was a documentary crew following them, embedded with them, filming every moment of it.

And that documentary crew has made a film about it called Union I have seen this documentary and it is utterly fantastic It is one of the best representations you could ever hope to see about how average people working together can beat a Trillion dollar corporation headed by a big bald guy who wants to go to space. All right, it is an absolutely Incredible film everybody who has seen it loves it But you know what because everyone in Hollywood is afraid of Amazon This movie has yet to find a distributor or land on a streaming service That's despite the fact that it should be a total slam dunk because it is a film with exclusive access to a story

Everybody knows with incredible characters, an awesome, successful twist ending. It is an absolutely perfect film and yet they cannot get it distributed because Hollywood is terrified of Amazon. What a fucking embarrassment. But the filmmakers, just like Amazon Labor Union themselves, are not taking this lying down. Instead, they have promoted the film via an independent theatrical run and they have self-released it on their own website. And people have come out of the woodwork to support it. In fact, the film was just shortlisted for an Academy Award.

So this film about the little guy beating the big corporation is itself a little guy that is beating the big corporations. It is an incredibly inspiring story, and on the show today, I have the two directors of this film here to tell us about the labor struggle and About their process making the film and self releasing it. I am so thrilled for you to hear this interview But before we get to it

I just want to remind you that you can support this show on Patreon if you like all these conversations We have about punching back at capitalism about independent media. This is independent media that you're watching right now Well, then I hope you can support us head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover five bucks a month gets you every episode of this show Ad free we also have an awesome online community that I'd love to have you join Patreon.com slash Adam Conover and just a reminder if you like stand-up comedy. I am on the road January 10th through 12th I will be in Dallas, Texas. January 23rd to 25th, I'll be in Toronto, Canada. And then in February, I'll be in Omaha, Minnesota, Chicago, Boston,

and a bunch of other cities after that. Head to AdamConover.net for all those tickets and tour dates. I would love to come see you and talk about unionization and workers' rights on the road. All right, now let's get to this week's episode. My guests today are Steven Mang and Brett Story. They are the directors of the incredible Oscar-shortlisted documentary, Union. I know you're gonna love this conversation.

Let's take it away with Brett and Steven. Steven and Brett, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks, Adam, we're so happy to be here. Yeah, thank you for having us. So I'm so excited to talk about your film, Union. I have seen it. I hosted a screening in Los Angeles. It's one of the best films I've seen this year.

It's absolutely fantastic. But before we get into that, we need to talk about the breaking news of the day, which is that Amazon workers who are unionized under the Teamsters have gone on strike for the first time as of literally today, Thursday, December 19th. And Steve, you were out there filming with them today, I understand.

Would you just tell me a little bit about what you saw, why they're on strike, and what the scene is like out there? Yeah, sure. So the IBT International Brotherhood of Teamsters set a deadline for Amazon to show up to the bargaining table. Of course, they did not show up on December 15th, which was the date set.

And so, two buildings within New York City, JFK 8, where we filmed Union and DPK 4 in Massbeth were authorized to strike. The organizers and the workers there have been preparing for this potential and eventuality. And so they were very strike ready. And today was the first day of that strike at DPK4 in Queens. It was, I've got to say an incredible scene. There's a ton of electricity in the air.

Media is swarming the place and it feels as big as almost when the MSL labor union won their victory back in 2022. But yet this is the very beginning of a new phase, a new chapter in the organizing. So I think there's a lot of interesting developments to come. Um, already. One of the things I just want to mention is that, um, there was a consent decree by, um, issued that, um, the NYPD was sort of on check on notice to make sure that an event like was seen in union where the NYPD arrests Chris and some of his fellow

organizers doesn't happen again. Right. They literally, uh, Chris Smalls and the other original organizers at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island were arrested by the NYPD, but now they're under a consent decree so they can't do that again. Is that what you said? Yeah. So as observers coming, um, from the AG's office and what lo and behold wound up happening was NYPD Flex

and Anthony Rosario, one of the lead Amazon Teamsters division organizers was arrested as he was trying to escort an Amazon worker to the signup table because he wanted to get registered. And so it was kind of like an unbelievable moment. On top of that, they eventually released Anthony and he returned with the hero's welcome. And it was incredible to watch because, you know, it was a classic example of how employers really organize themselves.

They're the best organizers and it really, um, you know, it just, um, catalyzed so much energy, um, at that moment. So it's, it's really something to watch. So these workers are on strike because Amazon refuses to negotiate with them at all. I mean, when the writersriters Guild went on strike in 2023, it was because we were in negotiations and the company had refused to bargain on most of our proposals,

but they at least sat across the table from us and said no. In this case, Amazon isn't even showing up to talk to the workers, is that correct? Yeah, that's right. It's been two and a half years since the Amazon Labor Union won. This historic victory, everyone said, was impossible.

And that was the victory in which they organized to become a union in the first place, right? That's right. Yeah. And they won a majority of the 8,300 worker warehouse in Staten Island. And Amazon, as a result, was obligated to negotiate new terms for a contract and it hasn't happened. And let's go back to that initial victory then,

because that is what your film union was about. So set the scene a little bit for the beginning of that organizing struggle. You know, what caused those workers to try to form a union in the first place and what made it so difficult? You described this as a historic victory that nobody thought was possible. What was so impossible about it?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing to say is that Amazon has existed as a company for over 20 years and it's never been unionized before, right? And many, most organizers, labor organizers would say that it's unorganizable for various reasons. It's got a ton of money. It has all these captive audience meetings in which it hires people to disseminate misinformation about unions. And mostly, it's got this incredibly high turnover rate. So you don't have workers that are on the job for years and years and years. You have people cycling through. So rewind to early months of the pandemic in 2020 and one worker, a worker named Chris Smalls, led a walkout at his work site

at JFK 8 to protest the company's lack of COVID precautions. I mean, we're all paying attention in the early days of the pandemic to the plight of essential workers who are still on the job and as a result are getting sick. Some of them are dying. That's happening at this warehouse in Staten Island, New York. And so Chris leads a walkout

and then is immediately fired by the company. So that's the company's mistake number one because it just makes more sense. Why was that such a mistake? Because Amazon's a dictatorial company that really exerts a lot of control over its workers. It would make sense. You let a walkout, sure you're fired.

I think a lot of bosses would do the same thing. So how did that blow up in their faces? Well, in two ways. One, it pissed Chris off. So Chris wanted to keep fighting. But secondly, you know, he let a walkout on behalf of his coworkers. The coworkers at the site have, on the one hand, an employer that's not even giving them basic safety precautions, and on the other hand, a coworker who will sacrifice his job in order to show solidarity with them. So it really

kind of galvanized this workplace around Chris and he started an organization called the Congress for Essential Workers, a group of other Amazon workers that started leading protests at Bezos' various mansions around the country. And then the second really notable thing that happened is that there was an attempt to unionize

a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. And it was a very high profile attempt. The election was in early spring of 2021 and tons of money, lots of politicians. And unfortunately, that resulted in a failure. And instead of being defeated by that failure, Chris and his co-workers that he was organizing with in New York decided that they were going to, you know, try their own version of unionizing the workplace without the support of a big national union. And so we were already working with them on the ground. We decided to start filming. I remember that campaign in Bessemer and there was a lot of controversy over Amazon, I believe putting a mailbox where people could deposit

their ballots and trying to incline people to vote no. And that was a very high profile failure and it was sort of taken as, oh, this is proof that Amazon is un-unionizable because this was the best effort ever made by a big, uh, well-known, uh, established labor union and it failed. Uh, but Chris took the opposite lesson from it and said, Oh, well, he got close. We could maybe do the same thing.

Uh, maybe we could win. And so tell me how you guys got involved filming with them. Um, because let me fast forward a little bit. The fact that Chris and his colleagues were able to unionize Amazon a while later was the biggest story in labor. When I found out, hold on a second, there was a camera crew filming that story

the entire time from the beginning. I was like gobsmacked. I was like, I wanna do something about this in my own capacity as like a, you know, whatever, documentarian comedian who cares about this shit. Oh my God. But you guys were there from the beginning. That is such a striking gold as a documentary crew, right? To cover this big, incredible story from the beginning that has a surprising ending. So how did you get involved and did you have an inkling in your mind, oh my God, this is gonna be a big deal when you first started filming with them?

I mean, we thought it was gonna be a big deal, but not in the way that it actually was. We have these fantastic producers, Samantha Curley and Marz Barone, and they had contacted Chris in 2020, as early as these first couple of months when he was leading protests, and talked to him right away about the possibility of making a film.

One of the reasons Chris was in the news in those early days is that there had been this leaked memo, maybe folks remember this, in which all these big Amazon executives were at a table and said, oh, great, let's make Chris Small the face of this movement. We don't need to worry about this guy. He's quote unquote, not smart or articulate. So that got picked up in the news, pissed Chris off even more. Let's just say that also, I mean, that comes across as like really bigoted towards, I mean, you know, Chris is like a working class black man from Staten Island and, you know, looks and talks that way.

And I think that's part of a bunch of suits at Amazon headquarters are like, you know, not gonna think much of that sort of person in a way that is frankly insulting to him and to, you know, folks who know anybody like Chris, right? Yeah, we all know what it means when you call a working class black man not smart or articulate.

Yeah. And he knew what it meant. And yeah, I'll just quickly say, Chris, you know, Sam and Mars contacted Chris and started talking about a film about him, maybe about essential workers, maybe about Amazon and this particular site. And so we were lucky enough to kind of be thinking

about a film before they even decided to start this unionization effort. We were, you know, cameras were rolling in the days and weeks before they decided to start their own unionization campaign. And then of course, when they decided that we knew that this was a really exciting and important thing to cover, not because we knew they were going to win. That was a huge surprise for many of us. Um, but because we knew it was incredible that they would even try. I mean, who tries to organize a union at a warehouse that, you know, against a trillion dollar company when there's just been a massive defeat, you know, just, just a few states South.

And to do it independently, to do it, not with the teamsters, not with, you know, any other big union, but just to say, we are gonna start a new union, me and my colleagues. Now maybe, hey, makes sense to maybe do that at a coffee shop, but they're doing that at the Death Star of American capitalism, right? Almost literally the Death Star, like an Amazon warehouse full of these high turnover workers, right?

Everyone's being monitored, et cetera, et cetera. It seems like the, I mean, it sounds like the kind of thing where you'd say, God bless him for trying, but this is never going to work, right? The forces arrayed against them are, were so huge. Yeah. I mean, not just independently, but against a trillion dollar company that is employing the highest surveillance of any workforce and deploys and really is setting a high bar of standard for union busting, right? I mean, this is like their 100,000 plus crowdfunding beat a $14 million anti-union campaign.

And so the odds could not have been stacked more against them. And can we talk for a second about why it was important for them to do this and why unionization of Amazon is important? Like we've, we're talking about that as a given, but let's just take a step back. Like what are working conditions like for, you know, for workers, especially at that time on Staten Island, that, that made them want to see a change. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're, they're really punishing. That's the best word I can use. I mean, this is like a very,

it's a massive warehouse. So you take one warehouse, like, like JFK eight. It's what Steve 14 It's, what, Steve? 14 football fields large. And to end, people are on their feet full time for 10 or 12 hour shifts, night shifts as well as day shifts. These are workers that are already commuting two or three hours from their home neighborhoods to get there. They're surveilled constantly, but especially

by an app that is pushing them further and further to meet their quote unquote, productivity quotas. So this is why we hear so much in the news about like workers peeing in bottles and other ways to sort of shortcut their own very limited breaks because they don't even have time to get to the bathroom and back. The space is so huge. So there's really high workplace injuries. It's a very alienating environment. It's really challenging to get someone in management on the phone when you have to call

in if your kid is sick or anything like that. It's alienating. It's boring. It's physically punishing, and you might get fired at any moment. It's really not... And you can't live on the income you make in these jobs. That all plus the Amazon model is like defining the entire economy. It's not just this one company. It's the way in which this company building on the legacy of Walmart is defining modern

day low wage labor around the world. These are the jobs that are available to people, especially people without university education or without other means. I mean, when you think about how this is a very sophisticated corporation, right? They're very aware also that their employment history ranks them. It's like roughly three to 12 times more dangerous than any other industry job.

It's ranked more dangerous than logging and law enforcement. Yes. Well, just packing like stuff in Amazon boxes, picking and putting into the box is more dangerous than logging. When you choose to buy your toothpaste and some pantyhose or whatever, a razor from Amazon, you're putting somebody through a workplace experience that exposes them to higher rates of danger

than logging and law enforcement. Wow. On top of that, these algorithms, as Brett is alluding to, is like, you know, they're creating these tremendously high injury rates. And so obviously you would wonder, you know, could such a high tech corporation be unaware of that? Of course not, because this is the end goal to create a kind of termination practice,

right? is the end goal to create a kind of termination practice, that leads to this 150% turnover rate that people are increasingly become more aware of, that in order to kind of meet seasonal staffing needs, they need to be able to scale up around Christmas time, like right now, and then drop as many workers as they can upon the thousands, tens of thousands, as soon as that peak season rush falls off.

And so this is all about creating a kind of like disposable workforce that allows them to easily scale up and down to meet maximized revenue. So you're saying that the injuries that are caused by the intensity of the work and the surveillance are actually a feature, not a bug, because part of their goal is to cycle workers out incredibly quickly, to create a workforce

where they hire a bunch of people and then all those people are not working for them two months later. The more inhospitable of a workplace, the more dangerous, the more uncertain, the easier it is to let go of people, have them quit or be injured, to leave one way or another. And so high productivity rates are another way.

You want to get rid of a bunch of workers, well, you ramp up the productivity for that day, the goal, and then all of a sudden you have ways of creating disciplinary actions against workers that you want to drop off. Folks today's episode is brought to you by Alma. You know, I've had kind of a rough year in some ways on a personal level. And you know what? Finding someone who truly understands what I'm going through has been a tremendous help.

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where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you this holiday season, Enhance Your Everyday with Viya. Okay, so you're creating a vivid portrait, both of why these workers need help and need a voice in their workplace, but also how hard it is to organize them. I mean, look, new industries have cropped up in America,

you know, constantly, and it's always been the job of the labor movement to organize them. I mean, look, new industries have cropped up in America, you know, constantly, and it's always been the job of the labor movement to organize them, but this is like, Amazon almost seems specifically structured to make it hard to organize these workers. You're talking about people who are commuting many hours to go into a workplace that is basically almost a prison of sorts that you clock in and out of where you're surveilled constantly,

your movements are tracked, and where you clearly can't, or advocate to the people inside the warehouse, you don't have that opportunity. When they're entering and leaving, they're dead tired. So what strategies did Chris and his colleagues use to organize, I mean, you captured vividly in the film, but just give us a little taste of it.

Yeah, maybe I'll offer a couple and Steve can say some more about just on that. No, I mean, the other part of this, you know, disposability model is that it plays into the story that Amazon then tells its own workers, which is also, you know, defeats people's interest in organizing. The company says to these workers, don't worry about forming a union.

Don't worry about your long-term job prospects or well-being, because you're only here for a short time. This is a stepping stone for you. This is not a career. You don't have to feel good about this labor. You are on your way to becoming your own self-made entrepreneur, just like Jeff Bezos. And this is just, you know, like one step along the way. And I think that that's important to say, because, you know, when Chris and the other folks that we feature in our films set

up a makeshift tent beside the bus stop, which is the one place that they're sort of legally allowed to set up the bus stop as public property in order to start unionizing. This union drive, which means talking one-on-one with each with each worker, you know, there were a lot of reasons that people were disinterested in having that conversation or would say no to even signing a signature card and one of them was just like Oh, why do I need to worry about a union? I'm not going to be here for very long. Cause that's the story they're being told.

And maybe they need to hear it. They need to feel like that's true. But, um, but yeah, I mean, the main thing that, that the ALU did was that they just did basic worker to worker connecting, you know, they, they set up this tent and then later on a fire and they often gave out food. At one point they gave out free weed. Mostly they just spent time at this spot and become a presence and become a presence of workers that knows what the job is like. Everyone except Chris is still working at the warehouse. So they're coming off shift or they're on their way to shift,

connecting with their coworkers and saying like, hey, like, let's just have a conversation. You happy with your job? Do you think it could be better? Do you think it's fair? And getting them to sign these signature cards. I mean, the free food and the free weed, I mean, at first sounds like a giveaway,

but when you think about it, it is those organizers providing care and something needed to these workers. I mean, these are hungry people. The people who are working in this warehouse are not necessarily well-fed in the rest of their lives. This is not a job one has if one has a lot of stability for a lot of stability for a lot of folks. And so I can imagine how just being there,

providing that care, saying, hey, we're here if you need it. That's what Chris says over and over again in the film is like, we're here for you, right? And building that bond of trust one-on-one seems like it was really powerful. Yeah, I mean, when you think about how racial capitalism works, right? It's like how people become part of what is called

the invisible working class. It's about being convinced, being indoctrinated to start believing that your voice, your opinion, your feelings don't matter anymore. And so when it came down to like these things like pizza and we'd, you know, it wasn't this sort of transactional thing that they were doing. That was part of this larger effort to just reach out to their coworkers and ask them how they were doing. It was after maybe for the first

time in a 12 hour shift, offer them a place to sit and just talk or be silent. If it turned out it was their birthday to throw an impromptu birthday party, run down the street and get some cake or just, you know, shoot the breeze and meet workers where they were, which was a place of the tremendous suffering, pain and and, and, and agony, honestly. And, um, so I think this idea of like, what they did was like, they acted like fucking human beings, you know, in a, in an incredibly harsh environment that is trying to the exact opposite. Now, uh, you captured something that I thought was really powerful in the film, which is that, look, organizing

is human beings being human with each other, right? That is the soul of it. The company has this sort of corporate, capitalist, economic connection with you. It's one way. It's always to the company's benefit. And organizing is about saying, hey, I'm a person, you're a person, we have this in common. I know you and I see you. That's been my experience organizing with the Writers Guild, is me saying, I'm a fellow writer, you're a fellow writer, and we are gonna connect.

It's a true social bond, right? It's all about our humanity. But humanity is also messy, right? People don't get along, sometimes people are assholes, right, and every union has people people are assholes, right? And every union has people who are assholes in it, to be quite honest, you know what I mean? Because that's human society, right?

And when you embrace humanity in that way, you have to let that in. And you really show some moments in the film where despite the solidarity that these workers are showing, there's real tension. And I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit, like what were some of those tensions that cropped up and how did you try to, you know,

represent those as filmmakers while still representing the broader struggle? Yeah, it was, it always felt so important for us to allow space for those moments of tension in the film. I think that sometimes when we when we hardly ever see working class people organize in mainstream television or cinema. And when we do, it's always pretty romantic, right? There's this fantasy of a charismatic leader

who just is like perfect and has done the whole thing or a group of people that have bonded together through tragedy and get along constantly. I think real life organizing is an exercise, a weird experiment in group dynamics and trying to learn together how to do something collectively when everything else in our society tells us we have to do everything individually. We have to be in competition. We succeed or fail in relation to others.

We win or lose various struggles. So it was really important to us. That was the heart of the film was to think about, oh, this is a group of people that's learning to be organizers, labor organizers in real time in a moment in history in which union density is at its lowest, where maybe their parents weren't even part of unions, where we've all drunk the post-Reagan

Kool-Aid that unions are bad or corrupt, and look at them. They're doing it and they're learning how to do it together. That's really hard and it's really tense. There's real differences among these people, gender differences, racial differences, and class differences. One of the dynamics that we capture in the film is the fact that a number of assaults join the effort. So assault, of course, is a person who takes a job

at a given workplace in order to become an organizer, in order to organize it. They're assaulting the building. And so a lot of the salts come from a different racial or class background than some of the worker organizers. So they have just different life experiences. And those inner, I mean, what we witnessed watching this amazing struggle was that those tensions played out when things were at their hardest. And that's sort of like what class and race really do is they disorganize us.

So it was really important to watch people, you know, who weren't assholes actually, they're just complex, real human beings that have egos and get hurt like the rest of us. You especially get hurt by people that you think of as your family, which is sometimes what your co-organizers feel like they are to you. Well, that's what an asshole is.

I want to be clear. An asshole is someone who is a human who had their feelings hurt and had a natural reaction. But, you know, to you, relationally, they become an asshole and you become an asshole to them. And you are not able to see eye to eye. And that's something that just happens when you get groups of people together, right?

You have these conflicts and there are folks, you profile who are on board with the union effort and then by the end, a couple of them are saying, well, I'm actually voting against it even though I was there at the beginning because those interpersonal connections get a little fraught, right? I thought that was a fascinating thing to show

because, you know, you would imagine that your impetus as a filmmaker would be to just show the Rosie story and show the victory and not the messiness of it. I really think it's to your credit that you did, that you really show us how difficult this is. Well, it's like such an interesting frame to like look at it through the lens of like, what is an asshole?

I mean, cause it's really like, when do we feel vulnerable around other people and what makes us feel vulnerable and how does that make us act and behave as a result? And so I think when you think of like, how fast paced the campaign was, how much union busting was being thrown at them, it's not surprising to imagine that this idea of like, feeling like in the heat of the moment, you are putting all of your future and prosperity

and livelihood in the hands of this fellow co-organizer. And that can feel very vulnerable. Whereas in fact, I think there's nobody who could ever attest to an organizing community or environment that didn't actually encounter these really hard and inconvenient truths about where the fissures and weaknesses might lie in a group that require solidarity as this generic idea, but beyond, on a deeper level, this idea of time spent to talk through the things that bind you.

Because the container that they are trying to actually activate and bring to life, this idea of what a union is, is a space that is tasked with holding so many different kinds of ideologies, so many different demographics, differences of class and race and generational experience. And so for us as like a film team, being on the ground, it was like 300 days of, you know, spending time with them very intimately. Like the thought of like a clean narrative in this film would have utterly defied the truth that we saw, which is that organizing is hard. The reality of that is that you are going to encounter moments that are going to feel existentially challenging. And yet, if in fact you can get to the other side,

there will be this kind of like binding and bonding experience that becomes unbreakable over time. And I think that that was the most inspiring thing that, you know, despite as hard and as things got, even as messy as things got, this group proved that there's something that was seated, that was meaningful, that everybody cared about, about, above themselves.

That is really beautiful. I want to talk about your relationship with your subjects because you said you spent 300 days, you were in that tent, right? With your cameras, you are up close and personal with these folks. You're in the car with them. You're on Zoom meetings. Talk to me about how close you became with the folks who you were documenting.

And what is it like being there, documenting something so emotional, so personal to people in a vulnerable situation, and you are there pointing a camera at it, right? And say, I'm gonna make a piece of media about this. How do you balance that human connection that you felt with those subjects versus your identity as a filmmaker,

as someone documenting it? I mean, I'll just start. I mean, I think that there's a very challenging contradiction between observational cinema and sort of the ethics of representing people in moments of high vulnerability, right, that we both, the highest, like, most effective kind of bar of nonfiction cinema captures people at their most raw and honest. And yet it is a moment that requires a tremendous amount of trust to understand how much we are

allowed and responsible to disclude or include in a film. But yeah, I mean, we spent, it was a lot of time and it was, there was, it was a very unique, up close view of all of these myriad relationships, tremendous amount of very hard personal narratives that were, would be shared that we also understood were not necessarily part of this film even, that were not something that the film could responsibly actually reveal or expose about certain people. And it was, I think, like a real process in kind of like, you know, renewing this idea of like, documentary access, right? So like, making sure week by week, day by day, that we were honoring and being transparent about what our sort of thoughts, ideas, goals were, and also honoring the feelings of people

as they were going through the hardest experience of their adult lives. Yeah, there's something, you know, there's ways in which the filmmaker subject relationship is an odd one because it's like, there's ways in which the filmmaker subject relationship is an odd one because it's like there's ways in which it resembles friendship at its best, it can look like friendship, but it's like, you know, working with, you know, on a campaign with comrades. It can look like friendship, it can feel like friendship, but it's also different than friendship. And it's really important to understand that or else you will accidentally break each other's hearts.

And in our case, you know, I think it was always important for us to like be very clear, as Steve said, you know, that we are making this film in solidarity with this group of people because we feel like the stakes, we are included in the stakes of this struggle. Like we are interested in being living in a more liberated world. We're interested in workers having dignity and rights and healthcare. I live in Canada and I, you know, like our postal workers just have just been ordered back

to work after, you know, almost a month on strike. I have maternity leave because the last time the postal workers went on strike 40 years ago, they won parental leave. So we're either workers or we're indebted to workers for so many things. So we're making this film in solidarity, which means that we have a feel, the real sense of the stakes of their struggle, but we're also on the other side of the camera. So we have a responsibility to be really smart and careful with what we're doing with this, the power of narrative when it's going out in the public realm.

Can I share one anecdote? It was- Please. Yeah, it was really moving when we finished the film and we were showing it to different groups of people. And, you know, as you see start to unfold, you know, there were kind of two factions, ultimately one that became ultimately the reform caucus and then the original ALU proper. Yeah, there was actually a division that formed in the union eventually, which caused a lot of strife.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, sort of like on the table with this idea of, you know, people having some strategic differences with or criticisms of Chris and decisions that were being made. And at the same time, you know, like the organizing was so fast paced

and Amazon threw so much at them that I think it was very surprising and maybe hard for anyone to ever understand that as hard and as the differences were there was still something that bound all of them together. So that flash forward to when we were screening the film and Chris was watching this scene where Maddie, one of the salts, is and Chris was watching this scene where Maddie, one of the salts, is debating with Nat, the unhoused worker, on this idea of how far Chris could take this really. And Maddie defends Chris and actually says, no, I believe in him. I believe he can do this. When Chris saw that scene, I heard him just kind of say, you know, audibly, but to himself like, oh, wow. Wow, she said that.

And it was really like, it was really moving for me because I could feel how moving it was for him that like, it was a moment where he realized he kind of forgot how connected they were maybe, and that, um, the differences were not the terminal point of their relationships, that there was something that was underlying, you know, and, um, and, and really true in their connection. That is really beautiful. Uh, and I want to jump now to the fact that they won because of that and really true in their connection. That is really beautiful.

And I wanna jump now to the fact that they won because of that connection. Right? These workers, like you capture in this film, the moment that they win their election after everything that Amazon threw at them. Just tell me a little bit about what that moment was like watching them win the very first union to ever cover an Amazon warehouse.

I mean, I wish I could have bottled the feeling and had some of it right now. Need a little jolt of that. I mean, it was totally amazing. Like I, you know, I've been part of social movements for a long time, you know, since I was a teenager and there's a lot more losses than there are wins. And to be that close to a group of people that were never supposed to, never even supposed

to get to an election, let alone win and win on their own terms, it was like one of the high points of my entire life. You know, it's like an interesting kind of way to see a victory unfold because there's a vote that happens in real time, but it happens actually over two days. And so it's behind, it's in the offices of the National Labor Relations Board in downtown Brooklyn. And you can live stream it, and it's sort of like one by one,

the ballots are counted. So if you're using your own little checkers, many of the organizers were, and we were, you know, everyone who was watching, you're starting to see the numbers roll in and you're wondering if they're gonna track, oh, there's more yeses than nos, there's more yeses than nos,

like, but you have to wait till the second day. And then by the time this, you know, the second day rolls around, it was pretty clear that they were gonna win. So the like anticipation is just building up amongst all of us. And then that moment where it's declared and Chris and folks rush out of the courthouse,

it's just like totally amazing. I mean, that moment in the film is so, it just makes your heart sing to watch it happen, you know. It is so inspiring, especially because you see all the tension leading up to it and everything arrayed against them. And you're not really sure which way it's gonna go. I mean, I got caught up in it.

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And so let's talk about this film a little bit because again, when I heard that you guys had been filming the entire time, I was like, wow, you struck gold as documentarians, right? I've tried to pitch a couple documentary projects in my time. I know what buyers generally want, you know, like what, what do you need to have a slam dunk documentary? You need to have, uh, it's really helpful if you're telling a story that like everyone has heard, like it's a national news story, but you've got access to it, no one has.

You've got the behind the scenes story that no one has. You've got to have great characters. You need a surprising ending. Oh my God, you guys had all that in spades, right? You have the behind the scenes story of this national news, you know, this huge event. Chris and his colleagues are such incredible characters. behind the scenes story of this national, you know, this huge event. Chris and his colleagues are such incredible characters. You've got the drama, it's beautifully made. I was lucky enough to get to know you guys

and get to see a preview of the film. It's an incredible film. And then I hear you cannot get anybody to pick this film up. I mean, this film won awards at Sundance. It is absolutely incredible. I watched it and said, surely HBO, Netflix, somewhere is gonna pick this up. And yet you were not able to find a company to buy it.

Why do you think that is? I have my own theory, but you know, what would you offer as to why you've had trouble distributing what is objectively a slam dunk, incredible documentary. Yeah, I appreciate you framing it like that. That that's very kind.

You know, look, I mean, it was not surprising to us that something like this would happen. In fact, we prepared for this coming out of Sundance that we would get as many, you know, passes that were couched in this kind of regret. Things that such as like, sorry, we all actually love this film, but we can't do it for this or that reason. And what sort of reasons would that be? I've gotten a lot of Hollywood knows. So I know that the reason they offer is not always the real reason.

But, you know, what did we love the film, but what? Well, yeah, so just two things. One is just that, you know, we do a lot of work with Amazon and we can't jeopardize that relationship. Yeah, Amazon runs the back end of a lot of the streamers, right, like a lot of the big streamers are literally using Amazon's cloud services. So maybe they'd be concerned about that relationship,

but sorry, please go on. I mean, this is a company whose, you know, lead executive was rich enough to buy an entire newspaper and then squash a presidential endorsement. And so when you think about what is the potential power and impact of a corporation in America well, it's that which can set value on just the mere idea of like what a worker is worth or a documentary that tries to tell the story of what that worker is worth. And on both ends is this corporation that is deeply enmeshed in economically as well as culturally, right? Like they invest millions of dollars into people seeing them as Earth's best employer and also as a studio and part of the conglomeration of our

media environment as you are well intimately familiar with. I mean, they have captured not just kind of like economic power, but cultural power. And so I think that that's a little bit of the alarming thing. It hearkens back to like work I did in mainland China about censorship and citizen journalists. And like the thing they would say is that the reason the Chinese government is successful is because of the culture of self-censorship that they have succeeded at.

Amazon doesn't need to tell anybody to squash this film. Everybody just says, ah, that's not really a fight we want to pick today. Yeah, it's also I mean, I think that's like the media landscape generally. I think the the reasons are probably not too dissimilar for the, you know, as the reasons that that drove SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild to go on strike, which is that these companies are behaving like tech. Media companies are increasingly tech companies. They're trying to squeeze everyone that they used to pay well and no longer pay them well

and get things on the cheap. And there's huge media consolidation. So one thing that we kept hearing too is just like, we can't take it up the ladder, because there's this shuffle going on among our executives. The field is shrinking. They're putting the squeeze on all of their talent, but they're also churning out content that's more and more formulaic as a result.

They're taking absolutely no risk. There is something risky about an observational feature length film showing an insurgent group of people take on a huge company and form a union, whether or not you are influenced by Amazon or not. It's kind of like, there's a reason that all big corporations might be scared of that. Yeah, except that what you just described is one of the basic stories of Hollywood, right?

That people wanna tell. Scrappy underdogs take on Goliath and win. Yeah, it's in the fucking Bible, right? Right. It's like one of the basic stories that we tell over and over again And also it happens to be about a national news story And so there's plenty of other stories that are exactly like this one, right? That have all the ingredients that yours does that are obviously picked up and and spread all over the place that an HBO or a Netflix or a PBS, there's plenty of buyers for it. It just so happens that when it's about labor,

you get those passes, they say no. And you know, to me, look, when I started working in media, when I made my first show, Adam Ruins Everything for True TV, I really felt that it was to the credit of American media that we were doing a show that criticized advertisers, criticized capitalism, criticized the working conditions that they put us under, criticized corporate power,

and we did it on corporate media. And the ad sales team at TruTV would tell me, hey, we see what you're doing, it's really cool, people love to watch it, we'll stay out of your way. We'll sell the ads and we won't tell you what to put on the show. And literally we did the show for almost five years and we had maybe three different times out of,

you know, over 65 episodes, a couple hundred different topics, where the network told us, hey, we don't want you to tell this story. And I was public about what those were and I felt, hey, this was a success in terms of being able to tell this type of story on corporate media.

I find this story for you guys to be the opposite. It is an indictment of the media environment that we currently live under, the way that things have changed, that you could not find a buyer for what is obviously an important good story that should be told. I mean, there's no reason that a labor story shouldn't be told in the same way a sports story is or a racial justice story or et cetera, or any fucking story.

Like, it's part of the world. Why wouldn't it be told? People wanna hear it. It's a great film. It's an absolute indictment of how cowardly these companies have become, how afraid of corporate power they've become, how safe they've become, the amount of risk taking that we have lost in the media.

It's embarrassing, frankly. And I think that people at HBO, at Netflix, all these companies, should be embarrassed that they didn't buy this film. You don't have to say that, but I'll say it. It's humiliating. And if they're listening to this show, they should all be hanging their heads and saying, oh, we suck. We're so stupid. We're so stupid and cowardly. We're wimps. And we're letting Jeff Bezos tell us what to do. And is that why we got into this industry?

No. So I won't belabor the point anymore, but despite all of the forces arrayed against this film, you guys have really turned this into a success story because you've done an independent theatrical run, which has gone very, very well. And you were just shortlisted for an Academy Award by your colleagues, the documentarians in the Academy, have voted to shortlist your film for an Academy Award,

which is the first step to a nomination, despite the fact that, you know, it's very difficult to see the film because it hasn't been distributed. So tell me a little bit about, you know, what you did in response to this blackballing that you received from the industry in response to this blackballing that you received from the industry

in order to get the story out there and how have you managed to turn it into a success? I mean, the first thing we did was we reached out to workers, organizers, local unions, and started the conversation, like how can we collaborate with you to get this film out and to create what is we've been calling kind of like a worker screening series. So we're basically trying to offer at low or no cost the film so that workers in any industry, but of course Amazon can gain access to it. This idea that it was not going to be distributed is one that I think as our documentary community

tussles with, we have to remind ourselves that we're the ones who set the value and the success of the products of our creation, not corporations. We were able to do our own theatrical. I think we were like one of the highest grossing independent films on opening weekend. And on top of that, our digital release during this five-day period between Black Friday and Giving Tuesday, in just five days actually surpassed the revenue of the theatrical as well. So that was actually surprising to us.

We have a lot of generous investors that we have to repay and also we were, you know, everything we're doing is in a shared revenue model with unions as well during this very critical moment. So. Oh, cool. You're sharing the revenue from the film with unions. Yeah, with unions as well during this very critical moment. So cool. You're sharing the revenue from the film with unions. Yeah, with unions, with worker solidarity funds, you know, as we see appropriate.

So I just want to make it clear, like, this is not about trying to generate revenue per se. It's about trying to disprove the algorithm, disprove the metrics of valuation or devaluation of work that we feel is urgent, right? That people, maybe corporations are fearful of because they're mobilizing proof positive that collective action, collective organizing matters and is effective. Yeah. And I just want to underscore the theatrical because I think a lot of companies, even when

you do get distributed, they bypass theatrical release. And we're filmmakers. We care about cinema, not just because of the scale of it to see our images on a big screen. Well, that's nice and a good sound system. But with kids, we understand that a viewing experience is different when you're sharing it with other people. I mean, there's movies that I refuse to watch alone because I want to be in a room with strangers and hear what kind of audible sounds they make alongside me. Or just be out with a group of people afterwards to talk about whatever I've seen. And this is a film that's really important to see with other people because it generates a lot of questions, because you have a lot of feelings afterwards. You don't want to be alone. In the same way, you don't want

to be alone doing your job and going home and feeling miserable about it afterwards. So it was really important for us to get it in theaters all over the U S we, we had it at ran in New York and, and, and in, um, LA for multiple weeks get, got carried over cause the audiences really came out and that was really, has been really gratifying. Yeah. I mean, I hosted one of the screenings

here in Los Angeles and I think you make a really good point that this is a film about solidarity and humanity and finding commonality with other people and you could feel the energy in the room after the screening, like people were buzzing about, oh, we saw this together, and it's a film about togetherness and what we can do together,

and about the bonds between each other. People were going like, oh, I'm from this unit, I'm from that unit, oh, let's talk, oh, let's exchange numbers or whatever. It was really cool. So yes, this is, I mean, our culture wants us, the corporate media wants us to be so atomized and just watch, you know, whatever the latest

streaming schlock is alone in our houses. But you know, that is true. The point of the theatrical experience is not the big screen. It's other people. It's being around other people and you know, the capitalism wants us separate and coming together is a radical act, I think, in that context. And so it's so cool that your film gave people a way to do that and that people came out to support it, that you actually made, I don't wanna say made a lot of money, but you had a lot of success

in the theatrical release and in the online release as well. And so people can watch the film now, correct? Like if you're listening to this and you're saying, oh my God, I want to see this incredible film about that shows you how to organize your workplace and demonstrates what we can all do together as people in this radical way that the little guy can take down a trillion dollar corporation.

If that's appealing to you, people can see the film. Where can they see it? Yeah, they can go to our website, which is unionthefilm.com, unionthefilm.com. And they can do two things. Off of our website, they can rent it and they can also book a screening. So if you do wanna have a collective experience,

there's ways to book a screening for your university or your club or your local theater. And yeah, and we have like a bunch of festivals coming up. You know, I will just say like it is one of the like real benefits of this self distribution thing that we've done is that like if you've been bought and you're at some company owns your movie and they tell you, oh, people don't want to see it, you know, we're not getting the numbers. So we've

like, you know, hidden it in some library or we're not going to see it through theaters, There's nothing you can do about it. And we had this amazing experience of like, knowing that we could get people out, bringing people like you and other people to, you know, sort of eventize live screenings, and then like make it happen because we knew who our audience was. And then the audience, you know, brought other people. So I have to say, like, it's been kind of amazing for us to do this self-distribution thing and it's been a totally positive experience.

Yeah, I think that's a really great point that I've had that experience working with streamers in the past where they say, our expectations are kind of low for this. We think some people watch it, so we're not gonna push it that hard and say, no, I know there's an audience for it, that's why I made it.

If you push it, like they will come, because this is gonna matter to people. And you were able to, because this was independently produced, follow that insight yourselves and build the audience, and you have been proven right. So I predict, despite the blackballing, great things for this film.

And hopefully a couple of people will go watch it as a result of this interview. I hope you do. I encourage you to unionthefilm.com. Before I let you go though, I just want to ask the subjects of your film, the people who you captured the very beginning of this organizing effort.

Now it's much bigger. There are Amazon unions at a number of warehouses and some of them are on strike right now. So I wanna ask first, where are the folks who you profiled now? And two, where do you, how can people support the current workers who are on strike?

Sure. Well, so to start, Chris has really set his sights on international Amazon organizing. So he's really interested in this idea that to show Amazon, the collective power of workers, it needs to be an international consolidation of the organizing efforts. So that's been interesting to watch unfold. We'll see. I think it's all pending and in progress. A few of the other organizers went on to join the Teamsters, which was a really interesting development, especially after the Teamsters ALU affiliation.

really interesting development, especially after the teamsters, ALU affiliation. Um, and then, um, others went on to some other movements, but, um, a majority of them have stuck around and are still organizing or at least involved in the movement tangentially. So I think it's really exciting, um, to see that. I think is there's a really interesting parallel between the organizing effort and the film, because in the film we watch as the Amazon labor union organizers, they started that union independently.

And there's a moment in the film where they go and talk to some other bigger unions and talk about affiliating. And those bigger unions sort of say, ah, no thanks. You guys are too little. We don't really believe in what you're doing, you know, or, you know, we don't see eye to eye. We're not gonna, you know, we're gonna go our separate ways. And, you know, the ALU folks proved everyone wrong. And then all those bigger unions got on board, right? Like the Teamsters are now, you know,

the ALU proved to the Teamsters that this could be done. And your film is a little bit similar in that you have made this amazing film. All the distributors said, I don't know, is there going to be an audience for this? We're not sure that, you know, maybe we're going to piss Amazon off. We don't want to, we don't want the smoke right now. And you guys are proving, ah, fuck you. This is an incredible film. People are coming out of the woodwork to watch it.

You've been shortlisted for an Academy Award. And I'm pretty sure that, uh, eventually some bigger fish are gonna get on board, and you're gonna be able to say, told you so, right? I feel like there's a little bit of a parallel here. I don't know if you see it that way. Yeah, we've seen it a lot. Yeah. And including in the edit when we would be having arguments

about whether or not to include a shot or not include a shot. And tensions were high. I mean, it's been really gratifying to show the film and have so many people say afterwards, they recognize themselves in it. And I'd say a large number of those people are filmmakers as well as labor organizers, because it turns out like not having power sucks.

And when you see people not just give in to the fact that they are being told what to do and that there's nothing to do about it, but instead take things into their own hands in every realm, it's inspiring and it's contagious. And that's what we want. Yeah. When you think about like the kind of organizing term that gets thrown around a lot, the stress tests of a particular strategy or plan, you know, the ALU kind of put themselves through their own sort of stress tests in terms of like proving like, is this kind of like a

grassroots movement that could scale up successfully? And so we're seeing the beginnings of that. I'll just want to note and put out into the ether that now the onus is also on the Teamsters and this idea that can a large established legacy union understand on the deepest level how important it is to recognize and empower grassroots movement leaders or will they conduct themselves like a typical legacy, patriarchal union and bulldoze the kind of the genius and beauty of what they have started to absorb. And I think that that's really starting to play out. So, you know, I mean, the fact that like Sean O'Brien would show up at the RNC, you know, like, I don't know, there are a lot of beguiling moves that we need to kind of track because there is a certain conservatism that creeps in

and actually is a disempowering force within the labor movement itself. But yeah, I think this idea like about the mirroring of the film and its trajectory and its course, like, you know, our stress test was like, can we get through this, like, incredibly high stakes process and create a film that would have utility and meaning and rise to the occasion of like the complexity that we witness? And then as an industry, like as artists and filmmakers

within a larger industry, I think what is being asked of us is like, can we not just endure the challenge that these like huge entertainment corporations are, you know, putting upon us, but can we actually reclaim ownership of the direction and the identity of the work and the, the, the culture, visual culture of media making and art making, you, you know, cause it's, it is, it comes down this classic idea that applies to both, you know, what unfolded in front of the camera behind that, like alienation in capitalism is about fundamentally trying to dislocate people from the value and the product and the beauty of what they can create and who they are and get people to forget that. That is such a beautiful connection that, as someone who I do a lot of my work in corporate media, you eventually end up internalizing the incentives

and the pressures of corporate media and thinking that that is what should be the most important when I got into this because I wanted to be a comedian and an artist and I wanted to make the choices about what I made. And that's what the audience wants as well. The audience doesn't like corporate bullshit. They wanna see a real human story.

And so it's always a challenge to return to that. And that's, look, that is also the nature of work. Work is a human thing. We like to have the product of human labor and hold it in our hands and we want work to have dignity. And so both you guys and the Amazon workers are fighting for the same thing, to have agency and connection and determination

and dignity in your work, rather than have it be driven by these sort of like blind bullshit forces of capitalism. I love the connection that you made there. It's a beautiful one, and I think it really, really speaks to how powerful this film is. What a beautiful note to end us on. Thanks.

Yeah. That wasn't a question. And now let's all go to bed, because we're so tired. All right. Well, then let me just end here. Steve, once again, you were on the picket line today. And you know, we are now, you have been there from the very beginning of this unionization effort

to the point where these workers are on strike for the first time ever. So if folks want to support this effort, other than going to unionthefilm.com and renting your film, folks want to support this effort, other than going to union, the film.com and renting your film, how can they support this effort that is ongoing at Amazon right now? I mean, they should follow Amazon labor union, teamsters, um, uh, Instagram account, the teamsters, Amazon and the teamsters, um, the, follow those three sites, um,

on social media and announcements about the unfolding, um, strike actions, not just limited to New York now, right? We're seeing Illinois, Georgia, California, all, um, start joining. And I think, you know, let's wait and see, but probably some more. Thank you so much for coming on the show to tell us about it, to give us that perspective all the way from the beginning to end, if I can make one last pitch for this film to my audience, for why you should watch it, you know, a couple, uh, about a month ago, we had Jamel Bowie on the

show, the wonderful political writer. And he spoke really movingly about how we need more stories in America of what we can do with the power of solidarity. We have plenty of stories about what people can do alone, what the rugged individual does. That's so much that's been the American story. But that's a story that's sold to us by capitalism to separate us from each other

and to think that we can do it all ourselves. The same way that Amazon is telling those workers, hey, you're an entrepreneur, don't worry about your working conditions. You're gonna leave and you're gonna be a billionaire one day. It's in many ways a lie and that we need more stories about solidarity and what we can do when we are together, when we recognize each other's humanity and bind ourselves together,

regardless of our differences. And I have almost never seen a more vivid example of that story being told than in your film. Um, you, you cannot come away from it anything other than inspired and fired up. And, uh, so I really hope people go check it out. Unionthefilm.com. 12 bucks to rent. That's not bad for to be inspired on that level. 12 bucks or less. 12 bucks or less. And there if folks are working class and involved in a struggle themselves,

they are there's a pay it forward feature, right, where they can get it at a lower price. Or I presume I can rent it at a higher price to help pay it forward for those folks as well, right? Sure, absolutely. Great, well please go do so, unionthefilm.com. Steven and Brett, thank you so much for being here. Oh, it was so fun, and it was really just the honor

of our lives to get to document this struggle, so we're so glad to share it with everybody. Thanks for having us. So grateful for your support, Adam. This is awesome. Well, it was an honor to be able to get to document the struggle. So we're so glad to share it with everybody. Thanks for having us. So grateful for your support, Adam. This is awesome. Well, it was an honor to be able to speak with you about it. And I can't wait to see what you guys do next. Well, my God, thank you once again to Brett and Steven

for coming on the show. I know we said the URL a bunch of times, but if you want to watch their film, and I really hope you do, head to unionthefilm.com and you can rent it and watch it with a big group of people. Get some folks together and build some solidarity for this incredible movie. If you want to support this show and all of the conversations we bring you every single week,

I hope you head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show ad free for 15 bucks a month. I will read your name in the credits and put it in the credits of every single one of my video monologues. This week I want to thank the Dusty Shredder, Thor Tron, Samuel Montour, David Snowpack, Eric Carlson, Scooty Chimkinuggy, Miss Me With The Fascism, Aaron Explosion, Robert Foos, Game Grumps, Paul McCollum, Rick J. Nash, Bertie Cote, GD, Celia, Howard, and Kevin. We got so many other folks I want to thank as well. But we're running out of time. If you want to join them, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. And I thank all of you so much for your support.

Of course, if you want to come see me do stand-up comedy, January 10th through 12th, I'll be in Dallas, Texas. January 23rd through 25th, I'll be in Toronto, Canada. After that, Omaha, Minnesota, Chicago, Boston, a bunch of other cities after that. Head to adamconover.net for all those tickets and tour dates. I want to thank my producers, Sam Roudman and Tony Wilson, everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next week with more Factually.

I don't know anything. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hey, hey, I'm Lamorne Morris. And I'm Kyle Shevrin. And we're here interrupting your workout to tell you about the La Morning After podcast, now on HeadGum. That's right. Every Wednesday a new episode drops and we... Wait, Lamorne, what are you doing over there?

It's nothing. Just polishing my Emmy. Why? Because we're now the only official Headgum podcast hosted by an Emmy winner. Is that true? Probably not. But Jake Johnson's on Headgum.

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