105m; U.S.
Director: Eric Scott Latek
Synopsis: 27-year-old boxer Gary “Tiger” Balletto attempts to unionize the sport.
Contact: Eric Scott Latek; ericlatek@phantazmapictures.com; 401-270-3768; 401-556-5197
Category Archives: Collective Bargaining
Sweet Dreams (2006)
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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Organizing, Sports
Taylor Chain I: A Story In A Local Union
33m; U.S.
Director: Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn
https://www.kartemquin.com/films/taylor-chain-i-a-story-in-a-union-local
Synopsis (IMDB): Taylor Chain I tells the gritty realities of a seven-week strike at a small Indiana chain factory. Volatile union meetings and tension-filled interactions on the picket line provide an inside view of the tensions and conflicts inherent to labor negotiations.
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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (1992)
90m; U.S.
Director: Alastair Reid
Cast: Brian Dennehy, Jeff Daniels and Maria Conchita Alonso, Eli Wallach
Synopsis (IMDB): For a generation, the mobs main money machine was the Teamsters Union. When Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, the fight was on to see who could follow him. Jackie Presser was the son of a long time union board member and when he retired, Jackie was elevated to one of the most powerful position in the country; President of the Teamsters Union.
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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Transportation, Working Class
Precarious Work Affects Us All (2009)
4m; U.S.
Director: International Metalworkers’ Union
Synopsis: This short film describes the work of the International Metalworkers’ Federation and its global campaign with affiliated metal worker unions around the world against the rise of precarious work. This short video is available in seven other languages
Contact: Anita Gardner agardner@imfmetal.org
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Global Economy, Organizing
Producing Just Garments (2007)
25m; U.S.
Director: Media Intransigence
Synopsis: Garment workers take over factory and run it through workers’ collective
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Global Economy, Textile Industry
RMT: Our Union
35; U.K.
Director: Platform Films
Synopsis: From the inside of the Rail, Maritime and Transportation workers in the UK.
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Transportation
Rebellion in Patagonia (1974)
110m; Argentina
Director: Héctor Olivera
Cast: Pedro Aleandro, Héctor Alterio and Luis Brandoni
Synopsis (New York Times): “Rebellion in Patagonia” covers a great deal of ground in the sweeping style of the muralist, opening with the assassination of an Army colonel in Buenos Aires in 1923 and then going back several years to describe the events leading up to that assassination.
Most of the action takes place on the broad plains of Patagonia, one of the most beautiful, most spooky landscapes on earth. It was there that a coalition of Communists and anarchists had successfully organized the workers on the sheep farms. When the landowners later refuse to honor their agreements, new strikes break out and the Army chief, once sympathetic to populist cause, sets out to break the movement in a campaign that’s estimated to have taken the lives of 3,000 workers.
The film is a collection of vignettes, richly detailed with the sort of character and incident that recall nostalgically but without sentimentality the sense of high purpose of early trade-unionism. The movie has a great fondness for these seminal labor fighters, including a young Spanish activist (Luis Brandoni) who is also a realist, and a fine old German idealist (Pepe Soriano) who puts his life on the line for his beliefs.
It’s not all black versus white, though. Mr. Olivera defines divisions within the ranks of both sides, sometimes tragically and often wittily, as in an early trade-union meeting when the success of a strike is celebrated by the Communists with a rousing anthem while their nonpoliticized Chilean compatriots look on aghast. They haven’t yet been taught that politics can be expressed in song.
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
Tags: Government, Strikebreaking
Rising from the Rails: The Story of the Pullman Porter
47m; U.S.
Director: Brad Osborne
Director: Glenn Bradley, Lindsey Holloway and Evan Mason
Synopsis: RISING FROM THE RAILS: THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN PORTER, a documentary based on the best-selling book by Larry Tye, chronicles the relatively unheralded Pullman Porters, generations of African American men who served as caretakers to wealthy white passengers on luxury trains that traversed the nation during the golden age of rail. Unbeknownst to most of their white passengers, porters played critical political and cultural roles, becoming trailblazers in the struggle for African American dignity and self-sufficiency, patriarchs of black labor unions, and helping give birth to the Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately, however, their greatest legacy is that which they left to future generations.
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Blacks, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Transportation, Working Class
The River Ran Red
Director: Steffi Domike and Nicole Fauteux.
Synopsis: Blair Brown narrates this gripping account of a community’s struggle to preserve its way of life. In the summer of 1892, a bitter conflict erupted at the Carnegie Works in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The nation’s largest steelmaker took on its most militant labor union, with devastating consequences for American workers. Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick head a fascinating cast of characters which includes 300 armed Pinkerton guards, and the would-be assassin, anarchist Alexander Berkman. To evoke the strike and its century old legacy, the film employs documentary techniques, primary sources, dramatically staged scenes shot on location in the Pittsburgh area, and lyrical commentary found in poetry, song and fiction.
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
Tags: Strikebreaking
Rocking the Foundations (1986)
92m; Australia
Director: Pat Fiske
Synopsis: Australian documentary about the New South Wales Builders’ Labourers’ Federation, 1940-1975 — a union that broke the rules.
Contact: Ronin Films PO Box 1005 Civic Square Canberra, ACT 2608 Australia Phn: +61 2 6248 0851 Fax: +61 2 6249 1640 http://www.roninfilms.com.au orders@roninfilms.com.au
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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Construction Trades, Documentary, Labor History
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 