120m; U.S.
Director: Mel Stuart
Cast: David Dukes, Tovah Feldshuh and Lauren Frost
Synopsis (IMDB): The story of a fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist building in New York City in 1911 that resulted in the deaths of 146 employees, mostly young women. The ensuing investigation revealed the company’s almost total disregard for its workers’ safety in pursuit of increased production and profits, and resulted, among other things, in the passage of new worker safety laws.
60m; U.S.
Director: Claude Beller and Stefan Moore
Synopsis: Examines the economic problems of the New York City garment industry, including sweatshop working conditions, the plight of the working poor, the state of trade unionism, the impact of imports, and the role of organized crime in the apparel industry. – http://cinemaguild.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TCGS&Product_Code=1539
88m; U.S.
Director: Sidney M. Goldin, Aubrey Scotto
Cast: Maurice Schwartz, Judith Abarbanel and Mark Schweid
Synopsis (IMDB): “Uncle” Moses is a wealthy garment store owner in the Lower East Side. He lords his wealth and its attendant power over the neighborhood, dispensing noblesse oblige and conducting casual affairs with numerous women. When he falls in love with the beautiful young daughter of one of his employees, he discovers what it is like to be beholden to another person. He convinces her to marry him, but she does so out of financial and social obligation, and Moses’ love remains distressingly unrequited. At the same time, the growing labor movement attacks him for his exploitative employment conditions, and Moses begins to doubt the truth of the American Dream he thought he had achieved.
How could such a pivotal moment in American history be kept a secret for 60 years? Textile workers recall with pride the long-supressed story of the General Textile Strike of 1934 when 500,000 Southern mill laborers walked off their jobs. George Stoney, Judith Helfand and Susanne Rostock’s probing film explores how the strike still impacts labor, power and economics in the South today.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/uprisingof34/
63m; U.S.
Director: Alexandra Lescaze
Synopsis: Cannon textile workers (Kannopolis, North Carolina) contract fight to win one of the largest industrial union contracts in the South.
Contact: http://www.wheredoyoustand.info alexandra lescazemightyff@mac.com 845-353-2855 or 917-696-2494 / http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0169
40m; U.S.
Director: Jack Arnold
Cast: Sam Levene, Arlene Francis and Joseph Wiseman
Synopsis (IMDB): Film produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union — featuring several well-known Broadway actors — recreates Triangle Fire of 1913 and compares working conditions of the 1910’s with the 1950’s.
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.
Contact: Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XtYhfcEZ9A
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