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Category Archives: Organizing

Struggles in Steel: The Fight for Equal Opportunity (1996)

58m; U.S.

Director: Tony Buba, Raymond Henderson

Cast: Raymond Henderson, Dennis C. Dickerson and Katrina Heiss

Synopsis (IMDB): This documentary tells the forgotten story of the African-American struggle for equality in the U.S. steel industry (based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). In a series of interviews intermixed with archival footage and stills, we learn how these workers faced and overcame discrimination that came from white workers, the big steel companies, and even from their own unions.

Contact: www.braddockfilms.com 412-681-5449

 
 

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Strumpet City (1980)

360m; Ireland

Cast: Frank Grimes, David Kelly, Angela Harding, Peter O’Toole

Synopsis (IMDB): Covering the years between 1907 and 1914, Strumpet City follows several characters through the nightmare years of the “Dublin Lockout,” when the Catholic Church sided with the industrialists to smash Irish labor’s first substantive steps towards unionizing. Using the real-life labor organizer Jim Larkin (Peter O’Toole) as the dramatic lynchpin for the various stories, Strumpet City juggles several storylines to give an overall view of the terrible poverty and misery that afflicted the working poor of Dublin. The central story revolves around Mary (Angela Harding), a young domestic who comes to work for the wealthy, oblivious Bradshaws (Edward Byrne and Daphne Carroll). Once Mary meets handsome, kind foundry worker “Fitz” Fitzpatrick (Bryan Murray), she immediately falls in love, and the couple make plans to save enough money to eventually marry. Mary, distressed at the way the Bradshaws shuttle off their devoted housekeeper Miss Gilchrist (Mairin D. O’Sullivan) to the poor house when she can no longer work, decides to leave the insensitive Bradshaw household and marry Fitz.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/26709/strumpet-city/

 

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Sweet Dreams (2006)

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

 

Talkin’ Union (1979)

58m; U.S.

Director: Glenn Scott

Synopsis: An oral history of 4 women union activists in Texas from 1934 – 1950’s.

Contact: Glenn Scott glenns1048@yahoo.com The collective: People’s History in Texas, Inc.

 

Tanaka-San Will Not Do Calisthenics (2008)

75m; Australia

Director: Maree Delofski

Synopsis: This striking film shows the struggle of Japanese Oki Electric Manufacturing worker and singer Tetsuro Tanaka. Tanaka refused to accept the militarization of his job through calisthenics and the mind control of the company. As result, he is harassed and fired by the company. Rather than giving up, he decides to sing every day in front of the factory. He has continued this battle for 28 years, and in the process, has exposed the nature of this corporate management system. Tanaka has been to LaborFest before, and his music continues to ring out. His words “Never import the corporate fascism of Japan!” continue to have meaning.

Contact: http://www.tanakafilm.com http://www.din.or.jp/~okidentt/eigohome.htm http://unionsong.com/u218.html

 

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Tell Us the Truth (2004)

97m; U.S.

Director: Gabriel Miller

Synopsis: Documents the 2003 “Tell Us the Truth” music tour.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing

 

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Texas Gold (2008)

21m; U.S.

Director: Carolyn M. Scott

Cast: Peter Coyote, Kinnu Krishnaveni and Patsy Northcutt

Synopsis (IMDB): Portrait of Diane Wilson, local shrimper turned activist in Seadrift, Texas, along Highway 185 where giant petrochemical companies make Calhoun County the nation’s most polluting. Wilson has engaged in hunger strikes seeking changes in companies’ behavior, and she has embarrassed Dow/Union Carbide by entering their plant and hanging a banner from atop a tower. We meet a neighbor, see the vacant Seadrift main street (the fishing industry is virtually gone), and hear from talking heads about Texas’s environmental policies since George W. Bush was governor. We see Wilson’s mock commercial for “Texas Gold,” the local undrinkable water. Wilson remains cheerful and tough.

 

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The Big Sell Out (2007)

94m; Germany

Director: Florian Optiz

Synopsis: This film exposes the role of the IMF and World Bank by showing the effect of their policies on the lives of working people from around the world. They include an UK RMT railroad activist fighting to protect the UK railroad system, a Bolivian community activists fighting water privatization and a South African activist fighting to keep the lights on in Soweto which leads to a fight against the ANC government. This international film draws the connection of the policies of global capitalism of privatization and deregulation to the destruction of public services and the ruination of the environment and the people of the world.

Contact: Florian Opitz is a freelance documentary filmmaker, author and journalist. He was born in Saarbrücken, Germany in 1973. Since 1998 he has been working as a freelance filmmaker and journalist for several European TV stations, including for ARD, ARTE and ZDF. His work includes numerous political and historical documentaries, such as the made-for-TV features Tibet – Myth and Reality (Tibet – Mythos und Wirklichkeit, 2001) and Arabs – History of a Perceived Enemy (Die Araber – Geschichte eines Feindbildes, 2003).

flopitz@spring-productions.de http://www.thebigsellout.org

 

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

 

The Price of Sugar (2006)

90m; U.S.

Director: Bill Haney

Synopsis (IMDB): On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, most of which ends up in US kitchens. Cutting cane by machete, they work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, frequently without access to decent housing, electricity, clean water, education, healthcare or adequate nutrition. The Price of Sugar follows a charismatic Spanish priest, Father Christopher Hartley, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people, challenging the powerful interests profiting from their work. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate, at what human cost they are produced and ultimately, where our responsibility lies.