(Mark Mori, US 2025, 79 min., DCP)
Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Mark Mori (for his 1989 documentary Building Bombs), turns his lens to the challenges facing labor organizers in an increasingly corporatized world. Starting in Buffalo in 2021, Starbucks baristas reported insufficient wages, disappearing benefits, and deteriorating working conditions. This ignited a firestorm of unionization that spread across the country, with nearly 500 union stores, composed of more than 10,000 union workers. But after three years, the urgency of the situation is clear, as Starbucks Workers United still does not have a collective bargaining agreement. Mori and his production team work on the ground, showcasing the bravery of the baristas — now unlikely union leaders — as they fight for representation against corporate union-busting and a backlash that includes lawfare, store closures, firings, corporate surveillance, and even arrests. It’s the new, current American working-class story, whose ending is still to be seen.
DCP from the filmmakers.
Upcoming Events in this Series
Film Screenings | The Great Postal Heist (DCP)
Labor Film Series Filmmaker Jay Galione’s first directorial work is this documentary about the current state of the U.S. Postal Service, inspired by his father, who was a postal clerk for thirty years before being falsely accused of padding reimbursements.
Film Screenings | Made in EU (DCP)
Labor Film Series Iva works in a clothing factory in rural Bulgaria battling a persistent, yet mysterious illness.
Film Screenings | Full Time (DCP)
Labor Film Series Julie (Laure Calamy) can’t catch a break. For a single mother raising two children in the suburbs of Paris but working in the city, the commuter train is a lifeline — and it’s suddenly been severed during the latest transit strike.