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Event
PATOIS 2024: Special Opening Night Premiere
NOTE: This program is not sold out! But online sales are over. You can still get tickets at the box office.
Direct from its world premiere at Sundance 2024, the film Amazon doesnt want you to see, with a post screening discussion featuring workers who formed a union at Amazon, and New Orleans Dollar Store workers organizing in New Orleans.
Film Description: On April 1, 2022 a group of ordinary workers made history when they did what everyone thought was impossible: they successfully won their election to become the very first unionized Amazon workplace in America. This feat would be extraordinary for any union, let alone the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), who did it with no prior organizing experience, no institutional backing, and a total budget of $120,000 raised on GoFundMe. Heralded as the most important win for labor since the 1930s, this highly cinematic documentary captures the ALUs historic grassroots campaign to unionize thousands of their co-workers from day one of organizing.
Described by ALU President Christian Smalls as the N.W.A. of the organizing world, the groups persona and strategies are highly unconventional: from wearing Money Heist costumes at press conferences to distributing free marijuana to workers. A core emotional arc arises out of the journey of these worker-turned organizers through a series of political battles, pivotal strategic events, and interpersonal tensions that test their commitments and their solidarity. Up against a corporate superpower and with legal protections at a drastic low for workers, all odds are against the ALU. Yet this rag-tag ensemble remains unswayed in their beliefs in collective action and the dignity and power of the working-class.
SPEAKERS:
MADDIE WESLEY & ISAIAH BROOKS - Maddie and Isaiah played important roles in the union victory by the Amazon Labor Union in the quest to organize workers at Amazon warehouses in Staten Island, and are featured in the new Sundance-award-winning film UNION, about that struggle.
KENNY ARBUTHNOT - In June, Kenny spoke on behalf of his coworkers with Family Dollar and Dollar Tree Shareholders to bring awareness and attention to their low wages and how it affects their lives.
FACILITATED by KALI AKUNO of Cooperation Jackson
Kali Akuno is co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, a network of worker cooperatives and community-led programs that sustain and grow a democratic, just and sustainable economy in Jackson, MS. Among these programs is the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust, which allows community members to collectively steward the land and creates opportunities for affordable property ownership. Kali is co-editor of Jackson Rising: the Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, MS, and the author of numerous articles and pamphlets. He has served as the Co-Director of the US Human Rights Network, the Executive Director of the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) based in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. He was a co-founder of the School of Social Justice and Community Development (SSJCD), a public school serving the academic needs of low-income African American and Latino communities in Oakland, California
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LocationThe Broad Theater (View)
636 N. Broad St
New Orleans, LA 70119
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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