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Category Archives: Themes

The Working Class Goes to Heaven (La classe operaia va in paradiso) aka Lulu the Tool (1971)

13 Jun

125m; Italy

Director: Elio Petri

Cast: Gian Maria Volonté, Mariangela Melato and Gino Pernice

Synopsis (IMDB): Lulù is a real hard worker. For this reason he is loved by the masters and hated by his own colleagues. The unions decide agitations against the masters. Lulù doesn’t agree till he cuts, by accident, one of his own fingers. Now, after he understood the worker’s conditions, he agrees the unions and participates to the strike. He immediately is fired and, not only is abandoned by his lover, but also by the other workers. But the fights of the unions allow him under a new legislation to be hired again. At this point his mind starts giving signs of collapse.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Organizing, Safety & Health, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

Working For Your Life (1979)

13 Jun

55m; U.S.

Director: Andrea Hricko and Ken Light

Synopsis: Covers working women and their problems and struggles to correct workplace hazards. Filmed in over 40 workplaces, the film interviews injured workers, including a woman who lost her finger in an industrial accident and another who has asbestos-related disease. Sterilization of women workers is discussed. Unlike many health and safety films, this one points out that organization is one of the best ways to protect one’s health.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health, Women

 

Working Girl (1988)

13 Jun

113m; U.S.

Director: Mike Nichols

Cast: Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver

Synopsis (IMDB): Tess McGill is a frustrated secretary, struggling to forge ahead in the world of big business in New York. She gets her chance when her boss breaks her leg on a skiing holiday. McGill takes advantage of her absence to push ahead with her career. She teams up with investment broker Jack Trainer to work on a big deal. The situation is complicated after the return of her boss.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Comedy, Drama, Finance, Romance, Women

 

Working Women of the World (2001)

13 Jun

54m; France

Director: Marie France Collard

Synopsis: Effects of globalization on European and Asian women.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Women

 

Working for American Workers (2010)

13 Jun

55m; U.S.

Director: College of Labor and Employment Lawyers

Synopsis: Documentary highlighting labor turbulence in the 60s and 70s through the eyes of former Labor Secretaries Willard Wirtz and Bill Usery. Includes the pilots strike among other events, and shows “vividly how labor secretaries can differ in interests and style, with very different effects on labor.”

Contact: College Executive Director Susan Wan SWan@gibsondunn.com 202-955-8225

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Politics, Public Sector, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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The Writers Guild of America Strike of 2007-2008 [2008]

13 Jun

15m; U.S.

Director: Laura Fishman

Synopsis: How the WGA won a fair share from the entertainment industry.

Contact: lfishman@ucsc.edu

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Entertainment Industry, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

Xica da Silva (1976)

13 Jun

Release Date: 1996   Duration: 107 min
Cast: José Wilker

Xica da Silva (released as Xica in the United States) is a 1976 Brazilian film directed and written by Carlos Diegues, based on the novel by João Felício dos Santos pt:João Felício dos Santos. It stars Zezé Motta, Walmor Chagas and José Wilker. It was chosen as the Brazilian submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 49th Academy Awards, but it failed to get a nomination. The film is based on the novel Memórias do Distrito de Diamantina, written by João Felicio dos Santos (who has a small role in the film as a Roman Catholic pastor). It is a romanticized retelling of the true story of Chica da Silva, an 18th century African slave in the state of Minas Gerais, who attracts the attention of João Fernandes de Oliveira, a Portuguese sent by Lisbon with the Crown’s exclusive contract for mining diamonds, and eventually becomes his lover. He quickly asserts control, letting the intendant and other authorities know that he’s onto their corruption scheme. Eventually Lisbon hears of João’s excesses and sends an inspector. José, a political radical, provides Xica refuge.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Biography, Blacks, Drama, Labor History, Service Workers, Sex Industry/Sexuality, Women

 

Yellow Earth (1985)

13 Jun

89m; China

Director: Kaige Chen

Cast: Xueqi Wang, Bai Xue and Quiang Liu

Synopsis (IMDB): Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women have under Communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama

 

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You May Call Her Madam Secretary

13 Jun

58m; U.S.

Director: Robert & Marjory Potts

Synopsis: Biography of the first woman cabinet secretary and “mother” of Social Security, Frances Perkins.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Politics, Public Sector

 

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You, Me & The SPP (2009)

13 Jun

91m; Canada

Director: Paul Manly

Synopsis (IMDB): You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule is a feature length documentary which exposes the corporatist agenda of the Security Prosperity Partnership, that is currently undermining the democratic authority of the citizens of North America

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy

 
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