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Category Archives: Safety & Health

Dark River / Rivers of Blood / Las Aguas bajan turbias (1952)

21 Feb

92m; Argentina

Director: Hugo del Carril

Synopsis: The brothers Santos and Rufino Peralta (of Carril and Laxalt) are used like animals in the workplace at the Parana Stop. There they encounter enormous hardship and inhuman conditions of work as a consequence of the immense greed of the managers. A worker’s rebellion is maturing, to the point that it is developed into trade union of workers who respond against their grief. Finally, the workers plot a counterattack and punish their corrupt employers.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Safety & Health, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

Deadly Corn: Campaign for Justice at the Staley Manufacturing Company (1994)

21 Feb

28m

Synopsis (AFSC): Produced by supporters of the strike by workers at the A.E. Staley corn sweetener plant in Decatur, IL, this program is an excellent review of the basic grievances behind the decision to strike. Shows that because of corporate attitudes about the dangerous chemicals used at the plant, the Staley company is becoming dangerous to the health and safety of its 800 workers and the community around it. Interviews with workers who talk about the horrors of a particular incident are a powerful indictment of corporate greed and indifference. Excellent sections on the hidden corporate web of control that Staley is part of and on issues of health and safety in the workplace. Can be followed up with Struggle in the Heartland.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

A Decent Factory (2004)

21 Feb

79m

Director: Thomas Balmès

Synopsis (Icarus Films): In an increasingly globalized economy, more corporations are ‘outsourcing’ their production to countries with cheaper labor costs and less legal protection of workers’ rights. Some corporate managers, whether out of sincere moral concern or because they must respond to the considerations of investors and shareholders, are attempting to balance profit-making with social morality.

A Decent Factory focuses on such an effort by Nokia, the Finnish electronics firm, which sends a team led by two business ethics advisors to examine conditions at a Chinese factory that supplies parts to Nokia. Filmmaker Thomas Balmès, having conducted three years of research on the subject, follows them on their investigative journey.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health, Technology

 

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Digital Handcraft. China`s Global Factory for Computers (2008)

21 Feb

28m; Germany

Director: Alexandra Welt

Synopsis: Digital handcraft is an educational film, a portrait of the process of computer hardware production. It displays the organisation of production in global value chains and investigates the conditions of life and labour for millions of migrant worker in China’s factories, which manufacture the hardware for the immaterial production of the 21st century. This film takes a look at the flipside of globalised computer production, which is incongruous with the “clean” image the industry usually displays. By interviewing both activists and workers, the film investigates the current situation as well as future possibilities for improving their situation. Furthermore, the film looks at issues surrounding the illegal shipping of computer scrap parts from Germany to developing countries.

Contact: http://vimeo.com/18616242 PARKAFILM Alexandra Weltz aw@parkafilm.cc

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Safety & Health, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 

Disaster Chronicles – Mine Disaster (1991)

21 Feb

 

Cast: Ken Hechler, J. Davitt McAteer, Ben Franklken

Synopsis: 78 miners lost their lives in one of the worst mine disasters in U.S. history, the Farmington, WV. Mine Disaster on Nov. 20, 1968. This documentary investigates the causes and effects of the disaster. Former U.S. Congressman Ken Hechler is one of the people interviewed since he lead the battle in Congress to change federal mine safety regulations. Also interviewed are J. Davitt McAteer of Shepherdstown, the head of the Occupational Health and Safety Center. Ben Franklin, a former New York Times correspondent who covered the disaster, provides some critical assessment. This was a watershed event led Congress to create a tough new mine safety law limiting the amount of coal dust produced in mines for the first time in U.S. history. The new legislation also compensated miners with black lung disease.

Contact: A & E

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health

 

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Down in Number 5 (2010)

21 Feb

18m; U.S.

Director: Kim Spurlock

Synopsis: Down in Number 5 is the story Carl Short, a terminally ill coal miner, who seeks refuge for his developmentally disabled son Sammy. Carl suffers from black lung, and when money from a class action lawsuit fails to materialize, he realizes his options are running out. Who will take care of Sammy after he is gone? Carl turns to Raymond Atkins, Sammy’s childhood friend and protector. But Raymond is now a middle-aged, single father overwhelmed by his own problems. Rooted in the Southern Gothic storytelling tradition, Down in Number 5 is a tender portrait of a man pushed to his limits for the love of his son and a haunting rumination on family and community in Appalachia. Based on a true story.

Contact: http://www.downinnumber5.com

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Safety & Health

 

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El Contrato (2006)

21 Feb

51m; Canada

Director: Min Sook Lee

Synopsis: El Contrato (The Contract) follows Teodoro Bello Martinez, a father of four living in Central Mexico, and several of his countrymen as they make an annual migration to southern Ontario. For eight months of the year the town’s population absorbs 4000 migrant labourers who pick tomatoes for conditions and wages no local will accept. Under a well-meaning government program that allows growers to monitor themselves, the opportunity to exploit workers is as ripe as the fruit they pick. Only men with families to support and no more than an elementary school education need apply. Grievances – among them abusive bosses, unhealthy conditions and paying for benefits they don’t receive – are deflected by a long line of others “back home” who are willing to take their place. Despite a fear of repercussions, the workers voice their desire for dignity and respect, as much as for better working conditions. El Contrato ends as winter closes in and the Mexicans return home. Back in the embrace of their families some pledge, not for the first time and possibly not the last, that it’s their final season in the north. DVD of 2003 original.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Safety & Health, Working Class

 

Erin Brockovich (2000)

21 Feb

131m; U.S.

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Julia Roberts,  Albert Finney, David Brisbin

Synopsis: Based on the true story of an unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Safety & Health, Whistleblowers, Working Class

 

Evening with Claude Frazier, M.D. (1993)

21 Feb

27m; U.S.

Synopsis: Dr. Claude Frazier, M.D., is author of “Miners and Medicine: West Virginia Memories,” a personal account of growing up the son of a coal camp doctor and nurse. Frazier describes firsthand the horrific health problems in the coal camps, the resourcefulness of the doctors and nurses, and the struggle to raise health standards in and around the mines. Frazier recalls life in coal camps in Montgomery, Ansted, and Welch, WV. He describes the “ties that bind” in small WV communities. He also describes the responsibilities the coal camp doctor took on and the admiration the miners had for the company doctor.

Contact: WSWP-TV; WVLC

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Safety & Health

 

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Fighting Goliath – Texas Coal Wars (2008)

21 Feb

35m; U.S.

Director: Mat Hames and George Sledge

Cast: Narration by Robert Redford

Synopsis: About a group of politicians and citizens of Texas who worked together to prevent TXU from building 19 coal-fired electricity plants in their state.

Contact: http://www.fightinggoliathfilm.com/

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Documentary, Environment, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Organizing, Politics, Safety & Health

 
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