Public Sector | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

The Corn is Green (1945)

115m; U.S.

Director: Irving Rapper

Cast: Bette Davis, John Dall, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Schoolteacher Lilly Moffat is dismayed by conditions in a Welsh mining town. She sets up a school to teach fundamental education to the villagers. Her housekeeper and daughter oppose the project, as does the local Squire who will not rent her space. Using part of her own home, she goes ahead with Miss Moffat’s School. One of her students Morgan Evans turns from bully to brilliant student.

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Posted by Metro Council on February 21, 2012 in Children, Drama, Public Sector, Women, Working Class

Tags: Mining

The Corn is Green (1979)

21 Feb

94m; U.S.

Director: George Cuckor

Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ian Saynor and Bill Fraser

Synopsis: A strong-willed teacher, determined to educate the poor and illiterate youth of an impoverished Welsh village, discovers one student whom she believes to have the seeds of genius in him.

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Posted by Metro Council on February 21, 2012 in Children, Drama, Public Sector, Women, Working Class

Tags: Mining

Firefighter (2005)

21 Feb

18.56m; U.S.

Synopsis: 9/11 firefighters.

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Posted by Metro Council on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector

Degrees of Shame (1997)

06 Feb

U.S.
30m
Director: Barbara Wolff

Synopsis: Exploitation of part-time faculty in American higher education.

In 1960 Edward R. Murrow made a television documentary about the plight of migrant farm workers. Harvest of Shame examined the working conditions and economic realities of those least respected but absolutely vital workers in the agricultural industry, the harvesters.

To Barbara Wolf, a Cincinnati-based video documentarian, the economic situation and working conditions of adjunct professors suggested an information economy parallel to migrant farm workers. As with migrant farm workers, hiring of adjuncts is often done at the last minute, the extremely low pay is based on the number of courses taught, there are no benefits, there is no job security, and many adjuncts teach at more than one institution (often in different cities) trying to piece together a living.

Following the logic of Harvest of Shame, Ms. Wolf interviews a variety of adjunct faculty, who make visible the working lives of these faculty members who now do more than 40% of the teaching in America’s institutions of higher education. Interviews with university administration officials, union leaders, legislators, and other observers document both the problem and possible solutions.

Murrow concluded Harvest of Shame by asking his viewers to cultivate “an enlightened, aroused and perhaps angered public opinion” and to demand a change. Wolf sees her documentary as both informational and, in Murrow’s tradition, as a tool for change.

order from:

Barbara Wolf Video Work
1709 Pomona Court
Cincinnati, Ohio 45206
Phone (513) 861-2462
Br_wolf@hotmail.com

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Posted by iwwggrandson on February 6, 2012 in Documentary, Education, Public Sector, Service Workers, Working Class

Bob & Me

31 Jan

30m; U.S.

Synopsis: Budget cuts at the University of Maryland

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Posted by iwwggrandson on January 31, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector

At The River I Stand (1993)

26 Jan

56m; U.S.

Director: David Appleby, Allison Graham, Steven Ross

Synopsis: Documents the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and the historical forces which came together with the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. NOTE: see I Am A Man for a 10m version.

Opening Sequence

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Posted by Labor Film Database on January 26, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Blacks, Documentary, Public Sector, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

A Little Bit of So Much Truth (2007)

24 Jan

92m

Director: Jill Freidberg

Synopsis: When the people of Oaxaca decided they’d had enough of bad government, they didn’t take their story to the media…they TOOK the media.

info@corrugate.org 206-851-6785 (Cell)

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Posted by iwwggrandson on January 24, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector

A New Beginning (2007)

24 Jan

5m; U.S.

Director: Terry Lively

A short film on the West Virginia Public Workers Union – United Electrical Workers Local 170. State, county, and municipal workers in West Virginia brought the only union controlled by the rank and file to the state in spring 2007, marking a new chapter in organizing blue and white collar government workers. Terry Lively, a member of UE Local 170, and president of the West Virginia Filmmakers Guild, began a new film about contemporary unions in the state.

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Posted by iwwggrandson on January 24, 2012 in Documentary, Public Sector, Working Class