Director: Harold Mayer
Synopsis: Strike and development of Drug and Hospital Workers Union in New York City.
Category Archives: Organizing
The Liquid Fire (1962)
29m; U.S.
Director: Martin Hoade
Synopsis: This is an episode of the NBC religious program “The Eternal Light” and was produced by the Jewish Theological Seminary. It is a docu-drama presentation of the life of Samuel Gompers, a key founder and first head of the American Federation of Labor from the 1880s to the 1920s.
Contact: The film can be viewed here: http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc13671/m1/
Living Wage 101 (2005)
25m; U.S.
Director: Georgetown Solidarity Committee
Synopsis: Documentary chronicling the 5 year campaign of Georgetown campus workers and students to win a living wage for many campus workers, including the 2005 10-day hunger strike which won a historic living wage policy. Documentary is intended in part to help inspire and educate other students to organize similar campaigns on their campuses.
Contact: View the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQRaJvyDzo0
Locked Out (2010)
There are 2 versions: a 60 minute one with narration and a 90 minute one without; U.S.
Director: Joan Sekler
Synopsis: David and Goliath story of how 560 unionized (ILWU) miners in the desert town of Boron, California stood up to their employer Rio Tinto, a giant multinational mining company, and won a decent contract after being locked out of their jobs for 107 days and replaced by scabs.
Contact: http://www.lockedout2010.org/index.html
The Long Walk Home (1990)
97m; U.S.
Director: Richard Pearce
Cast: Sissy Spacek, Whoopi Goldberg and Dwight Schultz
Synopsis (IMDB): Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott lead by Martin Luther King.
Made in Dagenham (2010)
113m; U.K.
Director: Nigel Cole
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins and Andrea Riseborough
Synopsis: A dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination.
Made in LA (2007)
70m; U.S.
Director: Almudena Carracedo
http://www.madeinla.com/
Synopsis (IMDB): Made in L.A. follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a mega-trendy clothing retailer. In intimate verité style, Made in L.A. reveals the impact of the struggle on each woman’s life as they are gradually transformed by the experience. Compelling, humorous, deeply human, Made in L.A. is a story about immigration, the power of unity, and the courage it takes to find your voice.
Man of Iron (1981)
153m
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Cast: Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Krystyna Janda and Marian Opania
Synopsis (IMDB): Andrzej Wajda’s account of the events at the Gdansk shipyard in the summer of 1980. Winkiel (Marian Opania), a burned-out, alcoholic journalist is assigned to look into the activities of Maciek Tomzyk (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), the charismatic and articulate leader of striking shipyard workers. He turns out to be the son of Mateusz Birkut. The journalist makes use of her own reputation as a youthful radical, implying a solidarity with Tomzyk even as she searches for the dirty laundry the party bosses hope she’ll find. But as she interviews the labour leader’s associates and his detained wife, Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda), and hears of his travails and of his father’s death in the 1970 crackdown against the workers, Opania begins to feel his former idealism returning, forcing her to consider putting her own career at risk to side with the strikers.
Maria (1977)
48m
Director: Allan King
Cast: Enzina Berti, Diane D’Aquila and Jean Gascon
Synopsis (IMDB): Outraged by the insults to her mother, Maria decides to organize a union for the immigrant women she and her mother work with in a Toronto sweat shop. In her battle against male chauvinism, patronage and bullying, Maria wins her own freedom.
The Masses and the Millionaires: the Homestead Strike (1974)
30m; U.S.
Director: Robert Saudek Associates
Synopsis: Homestead steel strike in PA.
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