18m; U.S.
Director: Brewery Workers Union
Synopsis: Celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Brewery Workers Union
Category Archives: Collective Bargaining
Union with a Heart (1974)
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History
Tags: Food Service Industry
Valley of Tears (2003)
82m; U.S.
Director: Hart Perry
Cast: Mikel Weisser
Synopsis (IMDB): “Valley of Tears” begins in 1979 with a farm strike in South Texas. When pistols were flourished and strike leaders arrested, migrant worker Juanita Valdez recalls: “We realized for the first time Mexican-Americans had rights, that we were the majority….that we were Americans.” It took over 20 years to document this dream come true.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
What Does Trouble Mean? Nate Smith’s Revolution (2009)
56m; U.S.
Director: Jim Seguin
Synopsis: Bio-pic doc of Nate Smith who led protests against black exclusion from white unions.
Contact: http://www.natesmithmovie.ocm
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Blacks, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Organizing
Which Way Is Up? (1977)
94m; U.S.
Director: Michael Schultz
Cast: Richard Pryor, Lonette McKee and Margaret Avery
Synopsis (IMDB): Richard Pryor is playing three different roles here. The first being a poor orange picker named Leroy Jones who gets laid off when by mistake he joins the worker’s union during one of their demonstrations. Afterwards he is forced to leave his wife and family behind which also includes Leroy’s father (also played by Pryor) to go to Los Angeles. Leroy ends up working for the same company that fired him back home. He is a manager at the company but he is now distant from his former pals. He meets and falls in love with Vanetta who is a labor organizer which leaves him splitting time between his wife Annie Mae and Vanetta. When Leroy finds out that the Reverend Lenox Thomas (also played by Pryor) has got his wife pregnant while he was absent, he then make the moves on the reverend’s wife.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Blacks, Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Working Class
The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951)
96m; U.S.
Director: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish and Carleton Carpenter
Synopsis (IMDB): Lloyd Bridges stars as a union man at a small plastics plant in New Hampshire who is suddenly thrust into a management position when the owner is killed in a car accident. The film examines the tenuous relationship between management and labor and the effects on outside agitators.
The plant is the lifeblood of this small town, but the owner has fallen behind in bank payments and has outdated machinery. He’s losing contracts. Once Bridges takes over he decides to totally shut down while they try to land some contracts. He also tries to come up with an automatic cutter so that the plastic parts can be produced faster and cleaner. But an outsider (Murray Hamilton) keeps stirring up workers against Bridges and the widowed owner (Dorothy Gish). What ensues is a race against time as the workers become more and more disgruntled.
In a rare starring role, Bridges is excellent. Despite star billing, Gish has a smallish part. Other notable actors include Ernest Borgnine, Anne Francis, Arthur O’Connell, Anne Seymour, Carleton Carpenter, Parker Fennelly, Russell Hardie, Doro Merande, and James Westerfield.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Manufacturing, Organizing
Why Unions Matter (2008)
Director: Laura Deutch
Synopsis: Addresses importance of the union to organize and educate workers, particularly immigrant workers, about their rights in the workplace.
Contact: laura.deutch@gmail.com
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary
The Blue Collar Worker and the Hairdresser in a Whirl of Sex and Politics (1996)
101m; Italy
Director: Lina Wertmüller
Cast: Tullio Solenghi, Gene Gnocchi and Veronica Pivetti
Synopsis (Amazon): It’s spontaneous combustion when Tunin meets Rossella at a victory rally the night of the hotly contested election. She’s a right wing pro-business zealot. He’s a leftist labor organizer whose libido shifts into overdrive the moment he sees the fiery Rossella. Tunin’s determined to seduce her, but Rossella conceives her own plan to deal with the self-centered Lothario. Only two obstacles stand in the way of a blissful union – their politics and his wife. Passion and politics run amok in this delightfully sexy farce, the latest from director Lina Wertmuller.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Communism/Socialism, Organizing
The Working Class Goes to Heaven (La classe operaia va in paradiso) aka Lulu the Tool (1971)
125m; Italy
Director: Elio Petri
Cast: Gian Maria Volonté, Mariangela Melato and Gino Pernice
Synopsis (IMDB): Lulù is a real hard worker. For this reason he is loved by the masters and hated by his own colleagues. The unions decide agitations against the masters. Lulù doesn’t agree till he cuts, by accident, one of his own fingers. Now, after he understood the worker’s conditions, he agrees the unions and participates to the strike. He immediately is fired and, not only is abandoned by his lover, but also by the other workers. But the fights of the unions allow him under a new legislation to be hired again. At this point his mind starts giving signs of collapse.
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Organizing, Safety & Health, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
The Wire, Season 2 (2003)
720m; U.S.
Director: Various
Cast: Chris Bauer, Dominic West, Pablo Schreiber, Wendell Pierce
Synopsis: The second season of The Wire while continuing the narrative about the Barksdale gang expands the story to include a depiction of the decline of organized labor via the story of Frank Sobotka and the fictional International Brotherhood of Stevedores (based on the ILA).
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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Cities-Urban, Collective Bargaining, Drama, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Outsourcing
Tags: Boating and Shipping
What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us? (2009)
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 iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Big Business/Corporations, Collective Bargaining, Comedy, Organizing, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)
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