2:42; U.K.
Director: John Wood
Synopsis: A union can make a big difference to people’s perceptions of a job,” says the TUC’s John Wood, who created the video.
Contact: http://www.youtube.com/user/johninnit Online film
Category Archives: Organizing
Justice in the Coalfields (1995)
58m; U.S.
Director: Anne Lewis
https://store.appalshop.org/shop/appalshop-films/justice-in-the-coalfields/
Synopsis: This film by labor videographer Anne Lewis documents this militant strike and occupation of the company’s factory. Over 4,000 miners and their families were arrested in this struggle against union busting and the massive use of scabs to break the union and destroy the medical benefits of 1,500 pensioners, widows and disabled miners. Hundreds of state police were involved in escorting the scabs in this effort. The union also faced a $64 million dollar fine from State and Federal judges that was used to weaken the union nationally and was supported by Clinton’s NLRB Chair Bill Gould.
Keeping on (1983)
75m; U.S.
Director: Barbara Kopple
Synopsis (Allmovie.com): Keeping On was the only “fiction” film directed by documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple. Like her earlier Harlan County USA and The American Dream, the film examines a labor-management struggle in a hardscrabble Southern mill town. Dick Anthony Williams plays a minister who encourages the activities of labor unionist James Broderick. Williams’ stand polarizes the community, and the cleric is ostracized by the so-called “right” people. Completed in 1981, Keeping On premiered February 8, 1983 on PBS’ American Playhouse.
Korea, Labor, and the FTA
Director: MediAct
Synopsis: Korean workers against the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement.
Isn’t This a Time! (2004)
90m; U.S.
Director: Jim Brown
Synopsis: Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Theodore Bikel, Peter Paul & Mary and more celebrate folk music as an agent of social change, and links it explicitly to today’s struggles, including the war in Iraq. Inspiring.
It Takes a Child (1998)
56m
Director: Judy Jackson
Synopsis (Bulldog Films): Craig Kielburger was 12 years old when child labor activist Iqbal Massih was killed in Pakistan. He immediately went on a seven-week trip to South Asia. What he learned has turned him into a passionate, articulate and effective advocate on behalf of child laborers everywhere. He is determined to put child labor on the international agenda. He is 15 years old in this film.
He started a child-run organization called Free the Children, which now has 10,000 members worldwide. It directs lobbying and petition efforts at governments and big business. F.I.F.A. now won’t put its logo on any soccer balls that are made with child labor. Free the Children has raised over $150,000 to buy children out of bondage and create a school for them, while raising world awareness
Contact: http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/child.html
It’s An Attack (2008)
8m; U.S.
Synopsis: From Seattle and the WTO, to Mexico and the struggles of Los Mineros, to Colombia and the brutal murders of trade union activists, It’s an Attack highlights the global attack on workers and the ongoing activism of the United Steelworkers in fighting for the rights of all workers, in the U.S. and around the world. The video premiered at the USW 2008 Convention.
I Am A Man: Dr. King and the 1968 AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike
Synopsis: On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers. That evening, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a packed room of supporters. The next day, he was assassinated. (NOTE: see At The River I Stand for a 56m version of this issue).
I Am Cuba (1964)
141m; U.S.S.R.-Cuba
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood and José Gallardo
Synopsis (IMDB): Four vignettes in Batista’s Cuba dramatize the need for revolution; long, mobile shots tell almost wordless stories. In Havana, Maria faces shame when a man who fancies her discovers how she earns her living. Pedro, an aging peasant, is summarily told that the land he farms has been sold to United Fruit. A university student faces down a crowd of swaggering U.S. sailors and then watches friends shot by police when they try to distribute a pro-Castro leaflet. The war arrives on the doorstep of peasants Mariano, Amelia, and their four children when Batista’s forces bomb the hills. Mariano wants peace, so he seeks out the guerrillas to join the fight. If nothing else, an incredible example of pure film-making with stunning and innovative camera work.
I Am Somebody (1970)
28m; U.S.
Director: Madeline Anderson
Synopsis: Striking black hospital workers, mostly women in Atlanta.
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