26m; South Africa
Director: Open Eye Productions
Synopsis: Strike of South African workers.
Category Archives: Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts
The Uprising of ’34 (1995)
87m; U.S.
Director: George Stoney, Judith Helfand & Susanne Rostock
Synopsis: THE UPRISING OF ’34 tells the story of the General Strike of 1934, a massive but little-known strike by hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers during the Great Depression. The mill workers’ defiant stance – and the remarkable grassroots organizing that led up to it – challenged a system of mill owner control that had shaped life in cotton mill communities for decades.
Contact: First Run Icarus Films (http://www.frif.com/cat97/t-z/the_upri.html) / http://www.pbs.org/pov/uprisingof34/
They Don’t Wear Black Tie (Eles Não Usam Black-Tie) [1981]
122m; Brazil
Director: Leon Hirszman
Cast: Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, Fernanda Montenegro and Carlos Alberto Riccelli
Synopsis (NYT): At the beginning of the Brazilian film “They Don’t Wear Black Tie,” a middle-class boy and girl are making plans to live happily ever after. Maria (Bete Mendes) is pregnant by the handsome young Tiao (Carlos Alberto Ricelli), and that helps accelerate their plan to rush into marriage. Everything looks rosy. “They Don’t Wear Black Tie” is an extremely successful politically aware drama about how the bloom falls off the rose . . . The film chronicles the process by which Maria realizes that Tiao is not the man she thought he was. Her understanding of Tiao’s weakness is heightened by the political activity surrounding a local strike, at the factory where Tiao, his father and Maria are all employed. When the labor trouble begins, Tiao manfully wanrs Maria that she’d better stay home, exhibiting just the hind of stubborn sexism this courageous heroine refuses to tolerate. Later on, he violates the most basic tenets of his upbringing by becoming a scab. And Maria declares that her child will be bery, very proud of his grandfather, even if he never has a kind thought about his father at all.
“They Don’t Wear Black Tie” is an outstandingly good film in this year’s New Directors/New Films lineup.
Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (2007)
93m; Mexico
Director: Jill Friedberg
Synopsis: People of Oaxaca take the media into their own hands in support of the teachers’ strike.
United Action: Story of the GM Tool & Die Strike 1939 (1940)
33m; U.S.
Director: Michael Martini
Uprising of 1934
How could such a pivotal moment in American history be kept a secret for 60 years? Textile workers recall with pride the long-supressed story of the General Textile Strike of 1934 when 500,000 Southern mill laborers walked off their jobs. George Stoney, Judith Helfand and Susanne Rostock’s probing film explores how the strike still impacts labor, power and economics in the South today.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/uprisingof34/
Vale Inco’s CEO Roger Fuhrer Looses His Fight For Domination Over Workers (2009)
3.5m; U.S.
Director: Alain Sauve
Synopsis: A satirical look behind the scenes of Vale Incos management group as they do battle with the Local 6500 United Steel Workers Union. The strike has lasted 6 months and counting. Vale has weathered a recession and through it all has continued to be profitable, yet it demands concessions form workers. The workers have resisted these concessions and is locked in an epic battle with the greedy multinational.
Contact: Alain Sauve jackhammer111@msn.com
The Valley of Decision (1945)
119m; U.S.
Director: Tay Garnett
Cast: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck and Donald Crisp
Synopsis (IMDB): Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul’s engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.
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