On Feb. 29, the documentary “Americonned” screened at Pomona College’s Rose Hills Theatre. Following the screening, a panel featuring Amazon Labor Union president and documentary subject Chris Smalls, director Sean Claffey and two local union organizers, Pomona dining hall worker Rolando Araiza and Pitzer College dining hall worker José Ochoa, discussed workers’ rights and labor activism.
Led by Pomona Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies Kouross Esmaeli, the event was co-sponsored by Pomona’s media studies, economics and linguistics and cognitive science departments and the Claremont Student & Worker Alliance (CSWA).
“Americonned” primarily investigates the death of the American middle class. Breaking through bipartisan lines, a host of narrators explain how our country has been bifurcated — split into the America of the rich and the America of the poor.
Claffey referenced labor movements in the 1900s, explaining how the gap between worker compensation and productivity has increased dramatically since 1975. Following the free market movement on Wall Street of the 1970s, politicians and businessmen alike have colluded to create a protection racket for the rich, blocking efforts at unionization in the process.
Although the documentary includes interviews and contributions from a variety of scholars, organizers and working-class Americans, one figure emerges as the film’s central voice: Smalls.
Formerly an assistant manager at an Amazon factory, Smalls’ contract was terminated in March 2020 after he led a walk-out at his facility to protest inhumane working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When I was fired from Amazon, in the middle of the pandemic, I lost everything: my financial income, my stocks, my health, shorts, everything, my savings, all gone,” Smalls said. “And we’re quarantined, so I can’t get a job. So the only thing I had to do was organize. So that’s my advice to everybody. Don’t quit your job. Organize.”
Smalls and his co-workers built the Amazon Labor Union, a powerful grassroots organization that advocates for labor unions, a wealth tax and workers’ rights.
Will Warrick PZ ’24, a member of CSWA, was excited to hear from Smalls.
“[Smalls] is such a tremendous presence,” Warrick said. “It was awesome to hear him … [collaborate] with the awesome leaders we have on campus here, also.”
“Americonned” exists at two levels: It tells the stories of individuals who, like Smalls, are struggling with income inequality and simultaneously employs statistics to illustrate how these isolated stories are representative of a broader issue across America.
The film resonated with Noon El Mosalami PO ’24, a member of CSWA who has been surrounded by the issues addressed in the film since growing up in New York.
“The same stories are always repeating and my family went through the same shit with eviction stuff,” El Mosalami said. “It’s good to contextualize individual experiences into the broader politicization and the broader global movement towards … total liberation.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is central to both Smalls’s ongoing fight and the film’s plot, as montages depict the domineering control Bezos’ company has over its workers.
A leaked memo of an Amazon meeting where Bezos was in attendance revealed that company executives planned to make Smalls “the face of the entire union/organizing movement,” calling him “not smart or articulate.”
“There’s going to be days they spend $10,000 on union busters, there’s going to be days where they fire your comrades. What this film shows you and what we’ve proven is that going up against a trillion dollar company like Amazon — no amount of money in the world can amount to the power of people together.”
Towards the end of the documentary, Smalls waits anxiously outside the labor union headquarters in Staten Island to hear the results of a vote to create Amazon’s first workers’ union.
“We did it!” Chris yells, running out of the building with a white sheet of paper in his hand. He embraces his colleagues as swarms of reporters close in and the camera suddenly cuts to an aerial view, capturing thousands of people as they march down the streets of New York in protest.
Despite the $14.2 million Amazon spent in 2022 on union busting efforts and a public smear campaign, Smalls and fellow organizers succeeded in creating Amazon’s first union at a warehouse in Staten Island.
In the panel after the screening, Claffey emphasized the significance of the win.
“Chris and … six people really went up against the richest man in the world, who spent tens of millions of dollars to take him out,” Claffey said. “And he won.”
Ochoa and Araiza have similarly persevered in the face of callous pressure and intimidation.
The labor union UNITE HERE! Local 11 has represented dining hall staff at Pomona since 2013 and dining and facilities staff at Pitzer since 2022. Ochoa is a cook at Pitzer’s McConnell dining hall and a shop steward — or union representative — for Pitzer’s worker union. Araiza is a cook at Pomona’s Frary dining hall and shop steward for Pomona’s worker union.
Ochoa alleged that a new HR team hired by Pitzer before the pandemic changed its policies to hire new workers for only 10 months, undermining job security.
“We were talking about how we could do this better and I had no idea about unionizing … until a group of students reached out to me,” Ochoa said. “I was scared at the beginning to be honest. But once I started reading books and educating myself about the union, I started telling my coworkers about it. And little by little, one by one we started campaigning.”
Pitzer workers entered their first three-year union contract with the school in September 2023.
“We just won our first contract and the change is amazing,” Ochoa said. “The wages are great. The treatment is different … you see the difference between having a contract and not having it.”
Araiza was inspired to organize after receiving his first paycheck at 19.
“Working at Pomona, I made more money than my mom ever did working at her job right down the street making parts for airplanes for over 11 years,” Araiza said. “[Her job] was a place where they take advantage of individuals. And when I had an opportunity here to change that, I jumped up … If we can do changes here in our workplace, there will be some trickle effect around us.”
Araiza claimed that when he and other Pomona workers were first organizing and planning to form a union, Pomona elected to perform a self-audit document check on its staff. Araiza said this resulted in the firing of all but two of the organizing committee members.
“They hate when I say this, but [Pomona is] a company just like Amazon,” Araiza said. “They will hire the same union busters that they do, law firms, they’re the same guys. Ultimately, they just don’t want you to have that voice.”
Attendee Bela De Jesús PO ’26 was energized by the panel.
“All of the people up there [on the panel] had put up with a lot of crazy pressure from the companies that they worked for,” De Jesús PO ’26 said. “Firings and just general rhetoric that can be really scary, but their persistence — their bravery — is something that I definitely learned from.”
Smalls emphasized the power of community organizing.
“There’s going to be days they spend $10,000 on union busters, there’s going to be days where they fire your comrades,” Smalls said. “What this film shows you and what we’ve proven is that going up against a trillion dollar company like Amazon — no amount of money in the world can amount to the power of people together.”
During the Q&A, a Pitzer student raised the concern that the film would motivate 5C students to amass wealth to protect themselves, rather than inspire them to organize. Smalls responded that that kind of strategy won’t stand a chance against the violence that will ensue if income inequality worsens.
“It’s short-term greed that will destabilize and destroy this country,” Smalls said. “If people can’t buy houses and everyone is living in fucking tents, it’s gonna burn and they’re gonna go after them and eat them! For real. It’s an existential threat. It’s not like, ‘Well, I’m rich.’ Guess whose house is going to get looted first?”
Araiza emphasized how important it is for students at the Claremont Colleges to use their privilege to organize and advocate.
“We’re here talking about organizing to the future,” Araiza said. “This is why we come to these types of institutions. Because you guys are the future. You guys are going to go lead society. Hopefully, you can be in those chairs that change rules and laws, to make our jobs a little more easier to organize.”
El Mosalami appealed to students in the audience.
“We always say that we can never do enough or there’s no point in doing this,” El Mosalami said. “But if literally every person at this school dedicated one or two hours to either labor organizing … we would be in a much better place. You don’t need to know everything.”
Smalls offered up some final words of wisdom for the crowd, issuing a warning.
“I just started organizing four years ago,” Smalls said. “I say that because I think any one of y’all in the room right now, you can leave out of here and start a union wherever you work at, whatever movement, whatever industry you’re in. But let me tell you this: You [are] running out of time.”
Facebook Comments