Organizing | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Time to Tackle Climate Change (2010)

20m

Synopsis: Showcases trade unions´ concrete experiences, challenges, opportunities, and commitments for action on climate change and features contributions from over 45 trade union organizations from all over the world. Unions´messages for action highlight that the environment, employment, social justice and a just transition are all part of the same fight.

Contact: Julianna Angelova Sustainlabour International Labour Foundation for Sustainable Development Fundación Internacional Laboral para el Desarrollo Sostenible C/ Pedro Teixeira, 3 1ºC 28020 Madrid, SPAIN Tel: +34 91 4491045 jangelova@sustainlabour.

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Environment, Organizing

To Save the Land and the People (1999)

13 Jun

59m; U.S.

Director: Anne Lewis

Synopsis: Strip or “surface” mining – where coal is blasted and scraped from the mountain surface – increased dramatically in the Appalachian region in 1961 when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) signed contracts to buy over 16 million tons of strip-mined coal. Though cheaper for the buyer than deep-mined coal, the damage done by strip mining was far reaching and had immediate impact on coalfield residents. To Save the Land and People is a history of the early grassroots efforts to stop strip mining in eastern Kentucky, where “broad form” deeds, signed at the beginning of the 20th Century, were used by coal operators to destroy the surface land without permission or compensation of the surface owner. The program focuses on the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People, whose members used every means possible – from legal petitions and local ordinances, to guns and dynamite – to fight strip mining. The documentary makes a powerful statement about the land and how we use it, and how its misuse conflicts with local cultures and values.

Contact: Anne Lewis 512-656-0507 (cell) http://www.annelewis.org

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Environment, Organizing

Tags: Mining

To The Bitter End

13 Jun

58m; South Korea

Director: Jun-sik

Synopsis: Korean workers fight Worker Dispatch Law

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing, Politics

Together We Win: The Fight to Organize Starbucks (2006)

13 Jun

15m; U.S.

Director: Diane Krauthamer

Synopsis: A short documentary that chronicles the struggles and victories of the Starbucks Workers Union, from how it formed, to members continuing to organize.

Contact: Diane Krauthamer iw@iww.org

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Organizing

Tags: Food Service Industry

Together We’re Stronger (2008)

13 Jun

Director: Claire Harbage

Synopsis: Personal accounts of UCSC (CA) workers and their roles in union struggle. Work in progress; mostly of local interest.

Contact: Claire Harbage charbage@ucsc.edu

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Education, Organizing

Tower Colliery (2008)

13 Jun

11m; U.K.

Director: Claire Pollak

Synopsis: The success story of miners who pooled their redundancy money to purchase the land and mine to run Tower Colliery as a workers’ co-operative.

Contact: Brought to our attention in 2010 by: Nicola Seyd for London Socialist Film Co-op nseyd@hotmail.com

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing

Tags: Mining

Umberto D (1952)

13 Jun

91m; Italy

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio and Lina Gennari

Synopsis (IMDB): Umberto Ferrari, aged government-pensioner, attends a street demonstration held by his fellow pensioners. The police dispense the crowd and Unberto returns to his cheap furnished room which he shares with his dog Flick. Umberto’s lone friend is Maria, servant of the boarding house. She is a simple girl who is pregnant by one of two soldiers and neither will admit to being the father. When Umberto’s landlady Antonia demands the rent owed her and threatens eviction if she is not paid, Umberto tries desperately to raise the money by selling his books and watch. He is too proud to beg in the streets and can not get a loan from any of his acquaintances. He contracts a sore throat, is admitted to a hospital and this puts a delay on his financial difficulty. Discharged, he finds that his dog is gone and, following a frantic search, locates him in the city dog pound.

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Working Class

Uncle Moses (1932)

13 Jun

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.

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Cities-Urban, Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Organizing, Textile Industry, Working Class

Under Rich Earth (Bajo Suelos Ricos) [2008]

13 Jun

92m; Ecuador

Director: Malcolm Rogge

Synopsis: Under Rich Earth is a story about ordinary people with extraordinary courage. In a remote mountain valley in Ecuador, coffee and sugarcane farmers face the dismal prospect of being forced off their land to make way for a mining project. Unprotected by the police and ignored by their government, they prepare to face down the invaders on their own. Their resistance ultimately leads to a remarkable and dangerous stand off between farmers and a band of armed paramilitaries deep in the cloud forest. In a world dominated by news of massacres and terrorism, Under Rich Earth offers a surprising and poignant tale of hope and determination.

Contact: rogge@ryecinema.com distribution@ryecinema.com http://underrichearth.ryecinema.com

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Posted by iwwggrandson on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Global Economy, Organizing

Tags: Mining

Union Maids (1976)

13 Jun

48m; U.S.

Director: Julia Reichert, James Klein and Miles Mogulescu

Synopsis: Traces the organizing activities of three working class women in the laundry, meat packing and garment industries in Chicago in the 1930s. Features the oral histories of 3 women labor activists involved in the workers’ movements in the early 1930s: Kate Hyndman, Stella Nowicki, and Sylvia Woods. The women are figures of dignity and beauty amid their experiences of social injustice.

Nominated for an Oscar in 1978 for best feature documentary, and winner in 1978 of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics’ “Critics Award” for Best Short.