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Category Archives: Available Online

Union Maids (1976)

13 Jun

48m; U.S.

Director: Julia Reichert, James Klein and Miles Mogulescu

Synopsis: Traces the organizing activities of three working class women in the laundry, meat packing and garment industries in Chicago in the 1930s. Features the oral histories of 3 women labor activists involved in the workers’ movements in the early 1930s: Kate Hyndman, Stella Nowicki, and Sylvia Woods. The women are figures of dignity and beauty amid their experiences of social injustice.

Nominated for an Oscar in 1978 for best feature documentary, and winner in 1978 of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics’ “Critics Award” for Best Short.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Organizing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Textile Industry, Women

 

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West Virginia State Archives Labor Films (Various Years)

13 Jun

5m each; U.S.

Synopsis: A collection of 5 minute long (each) audio and video files of or about historical labor events. Including: Kaiser Aluminum, 1957 Walter Reuther at the West Virginia Centennial Celebration, 1963 Hominy Falls Mine Disaster, 1968 Farmington Mine Explosion, 1968 Black Lung Rally, 1969 UMWA Presidential Candidate Arnold Miller at Miners’ Rally, 1972 Dedication of the Mine Health and Safety Academy, 1976.

Contact: Audio/Video Files from the West Virginia State Archives. Access: http://www.wvculture.org/history/av.html

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Labor History

 

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With Babies and Banners (1978)

13 Jun

45m; U.S.

Director: Lorraine W. Gray

Synopsis (IMDB): From December 1936 to February 1937 members of the United Auto Workers organized a sit-down strike inside the General Motors Fisher Body 1 and 2 plants in Flint, Michigan. They ultimately won recognition of their union and improved wages and conditions. “With Babies and Banners” tells the story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade, composed of female GM workers and the wives of men involved in the sit-down strike, which not only provided support services (like running the union kitchens that provided food to the strikers occupying the plants) but did picket duty themselves. It intercuts footage from 1937 with interviews with the same women 40 years later, still active in union politics and still pressuring the UAW to acknowledge women as equals.

Director/Producer/Creator/Executive Producer/National & International distributor of the documentary films by Lorraine W Gray: With Babies & Banners and The Global Assembly Line.

 

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women

 

Witness To Revolution, The Story of Anna Louise Strong (1984)

13 Jun

27m; U.S.

Director: Lucy Ostrander

Synopsis: This film contains the history of the 1919 Seattle General Strike in the context of the life of Anna Louise Strong, a partisan and a journalist, who reported on the strike and also on the Everett, Washington Massacre, which also took place in the same year. The film provides a close up look at why the strike took place and how it affected the working people of Seattle and the world.

Contact: http://www.stourwater.com/

View Online here: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/witness_to_revolution

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women

 

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Even the Rain (También la Lluvia) [2010]

13 Jun

103m; Spain/Mexico/France

Director: Icíar Bollaín

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Luis Tosar and Karra Elejalde

Synopsis: A Spanish film crew comes to Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1999 to make a film about Christopher Columbus.  The intent is to do a revisionist account portraying Columbus not as a hero, but as a conqueror.  The film crew is not well financed and looking to cut costs, which includes to indigenous Bolivians being hired to star in the movie.  At the same time, a mounting wave of protests is occurring, with one of the film extras serving as a major leader, over the privatization of Cochabamba’s water supply.  The film crew becomes entangled in the protests in an ever more complex and deep ways.  A superb film about the intersections and limits of art and politics.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Arts/Culture, Entertainment Industry, Global Economy, Labor History, Netflix Watch Instantly, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

The Harvest (La Cosecha) [2010]

13 Jun

Synopsis: THE HARVEST will be told from adolescents’ perspectives as we meet 5 of the more than 400,000 to 500,000 children between the ages of 5 and 16 who labor in fields and factories to feed us, lacking the protections offered by the Fair Labor Standards Act that all other American children enjoy. We follow them as they follow the 2009 harvest, working throughout the spring, summer and early fall until they return to school in early November, struggle to catch up, only to be forced to leave school again the following April.

Contact: Shine Global 973 746-7257 646 442-1712 http://www.shineglobal.org/?page_id=19 Susan MacLaury, Executive Director: susan@shineglobal.org Rebecca Katz, Executive Assistant: rebecca@shineglobal.org Ruth Sarlin, Fundraising: ruth@shineglobal.org

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Children, Documentary, Farm & Food, Netflix Watch Instantly

 

Zoned for Slavery: The Child Behind the Label (1995)

13 Jun

23m; U.S.

Director: National Labor Committee

Synopsis: Investigation of very young working women in the Free Trade Zone in Honduras and consequences on their lives due to exploitation (below subsistence wages, lack of access to education, health hazards, forced contraception, denied freedom, harassment, etc.). A National Labor Committee (NLC) representative speaks about workers’ actual wages, the cost of production (for ex., 12 cents for a 20$ Gap shirt), the US tax support for free trade zones, and the pressure on companies to produce in free trade zones and the effect on American workers. The NLC representative looks at the wider economic impact of paying low wages (trading with people earning wages below the subsistence level is impossible). Detailed interviews with workers. Heated discussion with management as the representative gets caught asking workers questions without management’s permission.

–http://www.cleanclothes.org/campaigns-list/839–dvd-title-zoned-for-slavery-the-child-behind-the-label

Contact: Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XtYhfcEZ9A

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Children, Documentary, Global Economy, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), Textile Industry

 

Who’s Getting Rich and Why Aren’t You? (1996)

13 Jun

60m; U.S.

Synopsis: The eleventh CBS Report since 1993 provides an intimate look at the changing US economy and the middle class it is affecting, interviewing people whose stories represent the human aspects of profound economic change, from the entrepreneurs and specialists who became successful to the workers holding on to ideals that may no longer apply.

Contact: Available in 6 parts on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfJcpO-pCdc&feature=plcp

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Class, Documentary, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), White Collar, Working Class

 

What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us? (2009)

13 Jun

2m; Australia

Director: Manic Studios

Synopsis: Riffing on the “What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?” skit from Monty Python’s Life of Brian this is a very funny skit where a bunch of business executives list off all the benefits unions have provided over the decades.

Contact: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=184NTV2CE_c

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Big Business/Corporations, Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Organizing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 

Westinghouse Works (1904)

13 Jun

40m; U.S.

Director: G.W. Bitzer

Synopsis (Wikipedia): A collection of 21 short films, averaging about three minutes each, taken of various Westinghouse manufacturing plants from April 13, 1904 to May 16, 1904. They were made by G. W. Bitzer of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, were shown at the Westinghouse Auditorium at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and may have been made for that purpose. At least 29 films were shot. The films are now part of the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Contact: All available on Youtube via the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Works,_1904

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Manufacturing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 
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