85m; Brazil
Director: Eduardo Coutinho
Synopsis: 1979 Brazilian Metal Workers Strike.
Category Archives: Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
Porto Marghera-The Last Firebrands (2004)
52m; Italy
Director: Manuela Pellarin
Synopsis: A film about petrochemical workers who took matters into their own hands in the giant industrial zone engulfing Venice. Porto Marghera documents autonomous workers and their experiences from the point of view of the worker-activists themselves. “The mass refusal of literally toxic work forced hours on the job down at the same time as driving wages up. The labour hierarchy that sets white collar against blue, permanent against casual, was attacked by workers insisting on the maximum for everyone. The battle in the factory was linked to working-class life outside through direct appropriation of basic social needs.
Deadline for Action (1946)
40m
Director: Carl Marzani
Synopsis (WorldCat): This film analyses the post-World War II economic situation as experienced by one UE worker named Bill Turner. It focuses on the impact of the nation-wide strike in 1946 when over two million workers went out in protest over wage cutbacks. An animation sequence explains the role of multinational corporations and reveals their questionable business practices overseas during the war.
Millions of Us (1935)
17m
Directors: Slavko Vorkapich (as Jack Smith), Tina Taylor
Synopsis (BAM/PFA): The story of millions of unemployed in the soup kitchen and breadline days vs. the millions still working, personalized in the drama of a young man driven by hunger to become a scab, and whose experiences lead him to recognize his common interests with the strikers and to be converted to trade unionism.
The Ford Massacre (1932)
8m
Producer: Detroit Workers’ Newsreel Special
Synopsis (BAM/PFA): The only newsreel coverage of the historic mass march in downtown Detroit on February 4, 1932, against the starvation program of Hoover/Murphy, and the armed, unprovoked attack by Dearborn police and Ford “guards” on unemployed auto workers at the gates of the River Rouge plant.
Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Labor Struggle in the Post Office (1980)
45m
Directors: Tami Gold, Dan Gordon, Erik Lewis
Synopsis (AndersonGold Films): On July 21, 1978 thousands of postal workers across the country walked off their jobs when their contract expired, saying “No” to mandatory overtime, forced speedups and hazardous working conditions. As a result of this wildcat strike, six hundred thousand postal workers won a better contract. But two hundred workers were arbitrarily fired by management to teach all postal workers a lesson.
SIGNED, SEALED and DELIVERED… is the story of the struggle these postal workers waged to win back their jobs. It follows their fight into the streets, onto the floor of the American Postal Workers Union’s National Convention and among workers and communities nationwide. But it took the tragic death of Michael McDermott, a 25 year old mailhandler who was sucked into a conveyor belt and crushed to death, to bring their hazardous working conditions to national attention.
Website: http://www.andersongoldfilms.com/films/documentaries/ssd.htm
The Miners’ Hymns (2011)
52m
Director: Bill Morrison
Synopsis (REDCAT): Since The Film of Her (1996), award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison has completed more than 20 experimental pieces in which he poetically and rhythmically reworks archival footage in various stages of preservation or decomposition. With The Miners’ Hymns, he teams up with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to celebrate the culture and political struggles of the Durham collieries in northeastern England. Weaving together stunning black-and-white footage from the early 1900s through the massive 1984 strikes, the film montages different aspects of the miners’ lives—the hardship of pit work, the role of the trade unions, the tradition of the colliery brass bands and the annual Miners’ Gala in Durham.
Website: http://billmorrisonfilm.com/feature-length-films/the-miners-hymns
Strike in Town (1955)
37m
Director: Leslie McFarlane
Synopsis (NFB): This short film depicts the act of collective bargaining common to Canadian industry and shows how it affected a union, a company and a community. In Strike in Town the events that led to a deadlock in negotiations between management and employees at a furniture factory are staged against the backdrop of a one-industry town. It’s the story of a strike nobody wanted, but which everyone was powerless to stop.
Website: http://www.nfb.ca/film/strike_in_town
Struggle in the Heartland: A.E. Staley Workers Fight Back (1994)
19m
Synopsis (AFSC): Focuses on the events of June 4, 1994 when 5,000 workers from the midwest came together in solidarity with the 750 striking workers of the A.E. Staley company in Decatur. Helmeted police attack the workers non-violent sit-down protest of Staley’s management locking them out. Raises issues of the right to collective bargaining and to protest peacefully. Since this show does not clarify the issues involved in the strike, it is best to show it with Deadly Corn. It does not stand alone unless the purpose is to educate the audience about civil disobedience and intimidation by authorities.
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