** Q&A with Director Sean Claffey FRI 6/9 following the 7pm screening **
Americonned is a film about income inequality in the US and the tragic destabilizing effects to Americans. Radical inequality has led to radicalization at every level of society, and this powerful documentary depicts what happens when America hits its tipping point by looking back through our history at similar critical moments of instability. The labor movement of the past was born in times like these. We must restore the path to the once great middle class that now suffers in silence.
Despite an increase in productivity in recent decades, compensation for the American worker has been stagnant. In addition, 47% of American jobs are at high risk of being lost to automation by the mid-2030s.
In the United States, there has been an upward redistribution of over $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1% over the last 40 years. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have created a protection racket for the rich, and corporations are deliberately crushing unions.
In this David vs. Goliath story, Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer lead a movement to unionize Amazon workers for the first time, after the corporation fired Smalls for speaking up for workers’ rights. They are inspiring legions of workers to, as the late, great Congressman John Lewis said, get into “good trouble.”