Untitled Solidarity Project

UPS, the world’s largest package delivery company, occupies a vital role in the U.S. economy—moving 6% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) on a daily basis. In 2023, the stage was set for a national labor battle as the expiration date neared for the contract covering the 340,000 Teamsters who work at UPS. What does this national negotiation mean for the individuals involved? And what do individual choices mean amidst a collective movement?

This film joins UPS workers across the country—a budding UPS driver in California, a veteran of the 1997 strike in New York, a part-time warehouse worker juggling college and multiple jobs in Kentucky, and their co-workers—as they organize, vote, picket, and navigate the challenges of solidarity before their contract expires. In the process, there are debates about whether they should accept the new contract proposal negotiated by their union and the company, or vote it down and go on strike. Their decisions will have lasting implications as the United States’ largest private sector union workforce faces off against their employer, UPS.

In a coda, the film explores alternative futures where everything could have gone in another direction. What might have happened had the UPS Teamsters decided to reject the contract, i.e., to go on strike? Archival and verité material investigate the implications of these decisions and what it means to have one’s fates bound together with people across the country.