2015
Documentary
India
Director: Rahul Roy
Indian documentarian Rahul captures the struggle of Maruti auto workers in New Dehli. For more than two years, 147 autoworkers there were kept behind bars without bail or charge sheet presented to defense counsel.
Musical
United States
Writer and Composer: Si Kahn
Musical Direction: Jim Peterson
45 Minutes
In this innovative one-woman musical by the legendary singer, songwriter, and activist Si Kahn, Mother Jones awakens in Heaven which, to her surprise and delight, turns out to be an Irish pub. There, she meets a trio of musicians who recount the events of her life through music and stories.
Si Kahn contact: sikahn36@gmail.com
21 minutes
This film produced by The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) gives a taste of the post WWII politics that led to the Taft-Hartley Act that restricts the ability of workers to join unions.
Newsreel, 6 minutes
A wave of strikes occurred in 1946 after World War II ended and wartime wage-price controls began to erode. Here we see clips on labor disputes at Western Electric, Western Union, the auto industry, railroads, coal, ships, and trucking. The strike wave set the stage for passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which included injunctions for national emergency disputes.
Newsreel, 4 minutes
A strike in the coal industry during World War II leads to government intervention. After the war, another strike creates a pension fund. This video, made by the the United Mine Workers union UMW), features the union president, John L. Lewis, including congressional testimony. You can spot a brief shot of Congressman Richard Nixon at one point. Coal was a key industry in this era, supplying steel mills, railroad locomotives, electrical generators, and homes for heating.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 