Barbara Kopple made history in 1991 as the first female filmmaker to win two Oscars for Best Documentary Feature. The first came from her groundbreaking 1976 debut, Harlan County, USA. Her second win stemmed from another union-focused documentary, American Dream (1990). Her latest work, Union Town, completes her trilogy on labor rights in America over the years. The first film took viewers into the coal mines of southeast Kentucky; the second into the Midwest meatpacking plants; and the third follows groups of New York laborers who work at Amazon, UPS, and DoorDash.

Union Town is a triptych of these three employers, showing how each company fails to take accountability for their actions, dehumanizes their workers, and the lengths they go to in order to stop unions. The film explores class struggles, corporate corruption, and the fate of unions in late-stage capitalism.

As Kopple follows Amazon, UPS, and food delivery app workers, we get a striking glimpse into the inequity and harsh conditions that fuel these services. Many people order things online without a second thought. Union Town fights to become that second thought for American shoppers — and hopefully the third, fourth, fifth thoughts after that — allowing for a reconciliation at the intersection of consumer convenience and capitalistic greed.

The documentary is so densely packed that it easily could have been three separate films. Viewers may feel like they’ve been hit by a truckload of information. Despite its lofty scope, the film is eye-opening, full of insight, and includes a critical analysis of how these ubiquitous companies operate. At the same time, by weaving all three stories into one, it lessens the impact of each individual story. That being said, Union Town should still be required viewing for anyone using these services in 2026.

The documentary opens to a lively New York City. This town’s economic backbone isn’t its skyscrapers, Broadway shows, or Wall Street. It’s the thousands of workers who make the city run. The first sequence shows ominous Amazon trucks departing their distribution centers, UPS crates being carted down cracked sidewalks, packages being ported up and down five-story walk-up apartments, and food being delivered by zooming cyclists vulnerable to the traffic and commotion. Kopple couples these shots with harrowing statistics about the sheer volume of these laborers’ workloads: 2.5 million packages and half-of-a-million meals delivered every day. Unseen work keeps the whole city ticking.

At the center of the UPS workers’ stories in Union Town is America’s largest union, the Teamsters. They support workers who want to organize and bargain for better conditions, pay, and benefits. Teamster Local 804 represents unionized UPS workers in New York, which Kopple follows as they fight for a contract. One of her focuses is the VP of Teamsters Local 804, Chris Williamson, who leads a protest and reminds the group that the country is watching what happens. They are “about to set the stage for America,” he says. If they can’t reach a contract with UPS, a strike is imminent.

Kopple dashes from the Long Island UPS facility over to the bustling boroughs and turns her camera onto the city’s 65,000 food delivery app workers. These laborers earn about $7 per hour, before expenses, without tips. If the work wasn’t harsh enough in any other city, it’s even worse in NYC, as the cyclists and motorists face deadly traffic, theft, assaults, and more. Their fight in Union Town is formed by grassroots organizations like Workers Justice Project and Los Deliveristas Unidos. The groups help deliveristas combat wage theft, fight for better pay, and raise concerns about worker safety.

Finally, Kopple’s focus shifts to Amazon workers. While they employ over 300,000 drivers, none of them technically work for Bezos’ conglomerate, due to subcontracts and loopholes. Union Town follows the DBK4 facility’s fight to be recognized as a union, again with help from the Teamsters. After Amazon ignored a December 15 deadline set by the Teamsters to negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement, workers attempted to strike right before the holiday shopping season. The strike lasted six days, without any action from Amazon.

Image credit to TIFF

While Union Town shows a few small wins, the majority of Kopple’s documentary is far bleaker than the first two installments in her trilogy. Luckily, UPS workers narrowly avoided a strike and gained a new contract with higher pay and better benefits. For some UPS workers, it wasn’t enough, but many considered it a win. DoorDash admitted they committed wage theft against New York employees and reached a multi-million-dollar settlement. There was also a New York City law passed that prohibits these apps from firing deliveristas without just cause — which, as the film shows, they often do. These wins were thanks to the organizing of workers, their protesting, and the help of unions like the Teamsters. Amazon has been ordered to bargain with the Teamsters and has yet to do so. Instead, in the year after their December 2024 strike, Amazon spent more than $26 million on anti-union consultants, continuing their notorious union-busting tactics.

The documentary ends on a sobering note that reflects the current state of labor rights. You wouldn’t expect the film to end any differently, looking at the first two installments in Kopple’s trilogy. Although the miners’ strike in Harlan County, USA, led to a successful contract, Kopple showed the fight was far from over. In 1990, American Dream was an even more depressing look at unions. The long strike and failed bargaining reiterated the decline of workers’ rights.

Now, almost exactly fifty years after Harlan County, USA’s 1976 release, Union Town reminds us that the fight never ends. Especially in 2026, when people are more divided, corporations have record profits, and workers’ wages have increased at nowhere near the rate of the cost of living or inflation, we need to organize more than ever. This documentary could be many viewers’ (and workers’) gateway to the action that’s needed.

Review Courtesy of Kasey Dunifer

Feature image credit to TIFF