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Author Archives: Metro Council

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

07 May

99m; U.S.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan

Synopsis (IMDB): In Budapest, Hungary, the Matuschek and Company store is owned by Mr. Hugo Matuschek and the bachelor Alfred Kralik is his best and most experienced salesman. When Klara Novak seeks a job position of saleswoman in the store, Matuschek hires her but Kralik and she do not tolerate each other. Meanwhile the lonely and dedicated Kralik has an unknown pen pal that he intends to propose very soon; however, he is fired without explanation by Matuschek in the night that he is going to meet his secret love. He goes to the bar where they have scheduled their meeting with his colleague Pirovitch and he surprisingly finds that Klara is his correspondent; however, ashamed with the unemployment, he does not disclose his identity to her. When Matuschek discovers that he had misjudged Kralik and committed a mistake, he hires him again for the position of manager. But Klara is still fascinated with her future fiancé and does not pay much attention to Kralik.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Drama, Romance, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Shots on the Docks (2003)

07 May

28m; U.S.

Synopsis: The stepped up repression of anti-war demonstrators and trade unionists took a new turn in the U.S. on April 7, 2003, when Oakland, California police attacked a peaceful picket on the docks. The Labor Video Project was there when Oakland police fired over a hundred shots of rubber bullets and wooden projectiles as well as concussion grenades to attack the anti-war protest. This video interviews the workers on the picket line as well as ILWU longshoremen who were standing by and were also targeted by the police and the company. It goes behind the pictures to expose the reasons that trade unionists joined the line and the reaction of ILWU Local 10 members to the attacks and arrests of their business agent. There is also an international campaign to defend ILWU BA Jack Heyman and the Oakland 25 who face criminal charges for the April 7 incident. – http://www.reelwork.org/archive/2004/films2004.htm

Contact: “Shots on the Docks” is also being streamed at: http://www.brightpathvideo.com/Labor_Video.htm purchase info: lvpsf@igc.org Photo credit: Labor Video Project Photo caption: worker holds wood bullet fired by police http://www.laborbeat.org phone: 312-226-3330 mail@laborbeat.org

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Organizing

 

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Shout Youngstown

07 May

Synopsis: Documentary on closings of steel plants in Youngstown, OH and the effects on the community.

Contact: View here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jk4ARquynE

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Outsourcing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Shutdown (1980)

07 May

26m; U.S.

Director: Laura Sky

Synopsis: This film documents the closing down of an American-owned branch plant, with all the personal trauma that such a decision causes the workers. The employees discuss the dilemma of working in an economy dominated by foreign ownership and the lack of government action to protect jobs in American-owned branch plants.

Contact: http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=13252

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Politics, Unemployment-Wages

 

We Can Do That (Si Puo Fare) [2008]

07 May

111m; Italy

Director: Giulio Manfredonia

Cast: Claudio Bisio, Anita Caprioli and Giuseppe Battiston

Synopsis: Soulful and funny, We Can Do That is a kind of modern fairytale with dramas, downfall, and unexpected success, which helped it become a huge box-office success in Italy. In Milan in 1983, trade unionist Nello is too leftist for his publisher and too right-wing for his girlfriend. Sent to run a cooperative of mental patients, Nello decides to organize them into a practical workforce. The group decides that installing mosaic parquet floors is the best option. It’s Nello’s exceptional patience that allows him to deal with the multitude of idiosyncrasies, turning each patient’s particular eccentricity into a valuable skill. Soon, the workers become sought-after specialists and are making real money—and then making demands! The co-op starts this adventure of normality with touching naivety, but not everyone is ready to confront reality. This moving, inspiring story is balanced with good humor and understanding so that we may all laugh with, and not at, common human foibles.

Contact: Rizzoli Audiovisivi Rizzoliaudiovisivi.it

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Communism/Socialism, Drama, Organizing, Romance

 

Sicko (2007)

07 May

123m; U.S.

Director: Michael Moore

Cast: Michael Moore, Tucker Albrizzi and Tony Benn

Synopsis (IMDB): Documentary look at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. Moore contrasts U.S. media reports on Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. He interviews patients and doctors in the U.K. about cost, quality, and salaries. He examines why Nixon promoted HMOs in 1971, and why the Clintons’ reform effort failed in the 1990s. He talks to U.S. ex-pats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care. He asks of Americans, “Who are we?”

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Documentary, Politics, Safety & Health

 

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Signal Seven (1986)

07 May

92m; U.S.

Director: Rob Nilsson

Cast: Bill Ackridge, Dan Leegant and John Tidwell

Synopsis (New York Times): The title refers to a radio distress call for a taxi driver in trouble and the movie is about people in various states of distress and the subtle signals for help they send out. It’s also about pride, loneliness, friendship, ambition, failure, fear and hope, as seen through the daily lives of a group of middle-aged cab drivers. The film follows two of them, Marty and Speed, played with depth and sensitivity by Dan Leegant and Bill Ackridge, through a night’s rounds at a time when one of their colleagues is brutally murdered. They audition for parts, play cards, trade tall tales, pick up fares, cope with the murder and try to get on with life.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Service Workers, Transportation, Working Class

 

Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Labor Struggle in the Post Office (1980)

07 May

By Tami Gold, Dan Gordon, Erik Lewis
1980, 45 minutes, Color and B&W, Video

On July 21, 1978 thousands of postal workers across the country walked off their jobs when their contract expired, saying “No” to mandatory overtime, forced speedups and hazardous working conditions. As a result of this wildcat strike, six hundred thousand postal workers won a better contract. But two hundred workers were arbitrarily fired by management to teach all postal workers a lesson.

SIGNED, SEALED and DELIVERED… is the story of the struggle these postal workers waged to win back their jobs. It follows their fight into the streets, onto the floor of the American Postal Workers Union’s National Convention and among workers and communities nationwide. But it took the tragic death of Michael McDermott, a 25 year old mailhandler who was sucked into a conveyor belt and crushed to death, to bring their hazardous working conditions to national attention.

SIGNED, SEALED and DELIVERED… speaks loudly and clearly to people everywhere who are organizing for safe and humane conditions in the workplace.

http://andersongoldfilms.com/films/documentaries/ssd.htm

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Automation, Documentary, Public Sector, Safety & Health, Technology

 

Silent Voices (2010)

07 May

14m; Pakistan/France

Director: Aisha Gazdar

Synopsis: The stories of women home-based workers in Pakistan told in a gritty and realistic style

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Service Workers, Women

 

Silicosis (2009)

07 May

45m; Turkey

Director: Ethem Özgüven, Petra Holzer, Selçuk Erzurumlu

Synopsis: At one end of the chain of distribution, there are the popular blue jeans. While on the other end are the unregistered workshops. The workers who make these jeans have contracted life threatening lung diseases. The expensive stonewashed jeans shine while the worker’s lives fade away from their dangerous work.

Contact: petramh@gmail.com

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary

 
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