A Study of the Need for Unionization in the Face of the Labor Crisis Caused by Neoliberal Multinationals in American Factory

American Factory is a feature-length documentary co-directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, which won Best Feature Documentary at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020. The film can be seen as a thematic follow-up to the filmmakers’ previous work, The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (2009). In American Factory, Bognar and Reichert dramatize the labor crisis triggered by multinational corporations driving neoliberal globalization. The film specifically examines the crises that unfold when Fuyao, a Chinese multinational automotive glass manufacturer, reopens a closed GM plant in Ohio, USA, and hires local workers.<br/> Initially, Fuyao’s management exacerbates the labor crisis through global labor arbitrage, drastically reducing wages for U.S. workers to less than half of their former wages at GM. This leads to a sharp decline in workers’ living standards, jeopardizing their ability to maintain a middle-class lifestyle and threatening their basic survival. A second labor crisis arises from the nationality of capital. When Fuyao’s management realizes the company is losing money, they impose Chinese management methods on the American factory by further reducing benefits, freezing wages, increasing labor intensity, and compromising occupational safety.<br/> A third labor crisis occurs when Fuyao systematically prevents workers from forming a legitimate union. The company pressures workers by threatening to close the factory, hires a union-busting consulting firm to placate employees, and fires those who actively organize the union, aiming to suppress and ultimately defeat union efforts. The final labor crisis depicted in American Factory is driven by the company’s active introduction of automation to replace human labor, leading to widespread layoffs.<br/> Through American Factory, Bognar and Reichert highlight the failure of American workers’ attempts to unionize but also emphasize the urgent need for workers worldwide to organize within multinational corporations to defend their wages, working conditions, and jobs, and to respond effectively to labor crises.