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Category Archives: Occupation/Type of Work

Miners Shot Down (2014)

02 Jul

(85 min) 2014 by Rehad Desai (South Africa)

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.  What emerges is collusion at the top, spiraling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. South Africa will never be the same again.
Film Website

 
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Posted by on July 2, 2014 in Collective Bargaining, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

Tala

29 Jun

Tala is a young Filipino domestic worker living with a bourgeois family on the north shore of Montreal. As she runs through her daily chores, dealing with the eccentricities of her employers, an unexpected phone call puts her at great risk of getting fired. Shot in a single long take and inspired by the current ‘Live-In Caregiver’ program of the Canadian federal government, ‘Tala’ tells a story of subtle oppression and re-empowerment.

Directed by: Pier-Phillippe Chevigny

https://vimeo.com/63939334

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Class, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration, Service Workers

 

Tangled Threads

29 Jun

“Tangled Threads” chronicles labor rights activist Kalpona Akter’s organizing efforts in Bangladesh’s garment industry before and after the Rana Plaza building collapse, which claimed the lives of at least 1,138 garment workers. It does so against the backdrop of two very different worlds: New York’s modeling industry, on the one hand, and Bangladesh’s garment industry, on the other. Produced by STZFilms.

Directed by: Sara Ziff

Sara Ziff is a New York-based filmmaker, fashion model, and labor activist. She co-directed and produced the feature documentary “Picture Me” (2009), which shed light on labor issues in the modeling industry, particularly sexual abuse. Currently she serves as co-founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for models working in the American fashion industry. Ziff first traveled to Bangladesh in 2012, when she began collaborating with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) to try to organize workers across fashion’s supply chain.

https://www.facebook.com/stzfilms

 

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Big Business/Corporations, Cities-Urban, Class, Consumerism, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Retail, Safety & Health, Textile Industry, Women, Working Class

 

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Schoolidarity

29 Jun

A sharply aimed film about Wisconsin and Chicago teachers fighting back against the onslaught of anti-union governors and big city mayors willing to sell out public education to the burgeoning power of the for profit charter school movement – which just happens to be mostly union-free.Through the eyes of public school teachers fighting for the benefit of all their students, Schoolidarity tells the interwoven story of the two most significant American workers’ rights struggles of recent years: the weeks-long 2011 mass occupation of the Wisconsin capitol, and the Chicago teachers strike of 2012. Schoolidarity provides a history of the issues surrounding the privatization of urban public schools in the US. By documenting the ascent of the activist teacher caucus CORE, Chicago’s public schools crisis is analyzed through the lens of the assault on public sector unions, where defeats are just as important to study as victories in order to insure education justice for all.

Directed by: Andrew Friend

http://vimeopro.com/insurgentproductions/andrew-friend/video/51703399

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Children, Cities-Urban, Documentary, Education

 

Hard Labor

28 Jun

Working conditions on the banana and pineapple plantations of Latin America are tough… here workers tell of trade union persecution, low wages and exposure to pesticides… made for the Make Fruit Fair campaign – to find out more about the social and environmental impacts of pesticides in Costa Rica.

Directed by: Jan Nimmo

http://www.jannimmo.com/PPHL.html

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Documentary, Environment, Farm & Food, Global Economy

 

Bonita: Ugly Bananas

28 Jun

When Scottish artist, Jan Nimmo, travels to Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, to gather workers’ testimonies, she observes the formation of the first trade unions in the banana sector for 30 years. The Los Alamos banana workers decide to go on strike for the most basic of rights. Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest man owns the plantation’s owner, Bonita Brands, and Noboa doesn’t like unions. Bonita is the world’s fourth largest banana company yet the workers earn a pittance, are exposed to a cocktail of toxic agrochemicals and their living conditions are appalling. Bonita is a powerful eyewitness account of what happens to workers who dare to stand up against a powerful oligarch.

Directed by: Jan Nimmo

http://www.jannimmo.com/Bonita.html

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Big Business/Corporations, Documentary, Environment, Farm & Food, Global Economy, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 

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The Real Rosie the Riveter Project

28 Jun

This archive of filmed oral histories was created by filmmakers Anne de Mare, Kirsten Kelly and Elizabeth Hemmerdinger under the guidance of the irreplaceable Dr. Michael Nash. The 48 women represented here provide a complex portrait of Rosie the Riveter, taking the viewer beyond the iconic “We Can Do It” poster girl and deep into the experiences real Rosies from diverse backgrounds, challenging the popular perception of women in American History. The filmmakers were inspired by the extraordinary women of The Real Rosie The Riveter Project to develop this material into an animated documentary project using new media technologies called The Girl With The Rivet Gun.

Directed by: Kirsten Kelly, Anne de Mare

http://dlib.nyu.edu/rosie/node/1029

 

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Automation, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo), War, Women

 

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The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980)

28 Jun

The U.S. entry into World War II created an unprecedented demand for new workers. Thousands of posters and billboards appeared calling on women to “Do the Job He Left Behind.” Rosie the Riveter was born — the symbol of working women during World War II. The story is told by the women themselves, five former “Rosies,” who movingly recall their histories working in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco during the war. Their testimony is interwoven with rare archival recruitment films, stills, posters, ads and music from the period, which contrast their experiences with the popular legend and mythology of Rosie the Riveter.

Directed by: Connie Field

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Automation, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Technology, War, Women, Working Class

 

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From the Shadows of Power

28 Jun

This awarding winning documentary is a powerful story set in coalfields of Appalachia, Wales and England. It documents firsthand the turmoil in the aftermath of the British Miners Strike of 1984/85 and the parallel struggle of the UMWA in its long running battle with Pittston Coal. This film brings to life the real struggles of working people at the pivotal moment when state power was used to open the floodgates to global capital, aid the destruction of coalfield communities and its labor institutions. Chronicling the critical role played by working class women in these watershed events, it features economist Helen Lewis, Reverend Jesse Jackson, women miners, Betty Heathfield of Britain’s Women Against Pit Closures, NUMs Arthur Scargill, and Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.

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Directed by: Jean Donohue

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2090505/

http://www.mwg.org

 

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Class, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Manufacturing, Occupation/Type of Work, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Themes, Women, Working Class

 

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Holy Apostles Church Soup Kitchen

28 Jun

John Redmond’s no holds barred portrait of the homeless population of downtown Manhattan, as they come to get the good food provided for the community by the Chelsea Church of the Holy Apostles. We hear what it is like to be homeless in the unequal economy of NYC and how it feels to know your only decent meal of the day will come from a church soup kitchen. 

Directed by: John Redmond

https://www.holyapostlessoupkitchen.org/

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2014 in Cities-Urban, Farm & Food

 

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