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Category Archives: Working Class

#standwithme

23 Jan

2014
Documentary
Directors: Patrick Moreau, Grant Peelle
Writers: Margaret Apple, Marshall Davis Jones

Only a 9-year-old would dream a lemonade stand could change the world. After seeing a photo of two enslaved boys in Nepal, Vivienne Harr is moved to help in the only way she knows how: by setting up her lemonade stand. With the goal of freeing 500 children from slavery, she sets up her stand every day, rain or shine. In telling Vivienne’s story, #standwithme examines the realities of modern-day slavery, the role we play in it as consumers, and the importance of knowing the story behind what we buy.

 
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Posted by on January 23, 2015 in Children, Documentary, Education, Global Economy, Organizing, Slavery, Working Class

 

Food Chains

23 Jan

2014
Director: Sanjay Rawal
Writers: Erin Barnett, Sanjay Rawal
83 Minutes
More details here (updated 4/20/2020)

This moving examination of the food industry illustrates the hardships that farm workers endure—appallingly low wages, long hours in often brutal conditions, wage theft, physical and sexual abuse, and virtual slavery—to bring food to Americans’ tables. Linking farms to supermarkets, the documentary focuses on the efforts of tomato pickers, as part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, to improve their wages and working conditions through organized, high-profile campaigns against powerful supermarket chains that they supply. Narrated by Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, Food Chains lays bare the often hidden human costs of our food, and the human struggles for dignity and decency for those who reap the harvests—but too few of the rewards.

 

 
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Posted by on January 23, 2015 in Available Online, Communism/Socialism, Farm & Food, Global Economy, Immigrants/Immigration, Labor History, Migrant workers, Occupation/Type of Work, Organizing, Working Class

 

Eat Sleep Die

19 Nov

2012
Directed by Gabriela Pichler
Sweden
104 mins

Nermina Lukac’s electrifying performance as Raša is the heart of director Gabriela Pichler’s feature debut. A Montenegrin-born young woman living in rural Sweden, Raša is laid off from her job at a food-packing plant. Her ensuing job search pulls us through the maze of limited prospects and frustrating bureaucracy facing the country’s working immigrant population. Affable, resilient, street smart and soft-hearted, Raša’s natural magnetism draws us in completely. We feel every ounce of her disappointment, fear and elation as she soldiers on, looking for work. An Audience Award winner at the Venice Film Festival, EAT SLEEP DIE’s assured naturalism and political conviction single out Pichler as a bold, exciting new cinematic voice. Her film is a positive rallying cry for low-wage workers who dream of a life that won’t merely add up to the three verbs that form the film’s title.
– Mike Dougherty, American Film Institute 

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2014 in Class, Comedy, Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Drama, Farm & Food, Immigrants/Immigration, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Legal System, Unemployment-Wages, Women, Working Class

 

Braddock America

19 Nov

2013
France (in English)
100m
Directors: Gabriella Kessler, Jean-Loïc Portron

Writer: Jean-Loïc Portron
Braddock, Pennsylvania has been the home to key events that have greatly shaped American history. Today, it is struggling to reinvent itself and stay relevant.

In its own way, through immigration, industrialization, the rise of trade unionism and its destiny in question, Braddock tells a story of America: a rebellious, combatant America inhabited by men and women who refuse to accept the violence inflicted upon them. “Resist much, obey little,” Walt Whitman urged his fellow citizens; and indeed his words could be the motto of this film. The Monongahela Valley has been heavily stricken by the steel crisis and the shutdowns of the mills in the 80’s. It is probably easier to find more enchanting places in the world, but if many don’t imagine leaving the valley, it is because they know that this tiny parcel of land bears the traces, buried in its soil and in their memories, of events that helped build the history of their nation. This same awareness leads them to believe that such a special place might one day help map out a future for the United States. http://program33.com/braddock-america/

10/30/2014 NYT review: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/movies/braddock-america-the-story-of-a-rust-belt-struggle.html?_r=0

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2014 in Cities-Urban, Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Manufacturing, Working Class

 

A Day’s Work (2015)

19 Nov

“A Day’s Work” is a documentary film that examines the landmark workplace death of 21-year-old Lawrence
DaQuan “Day” Davis through the eyes of his family and the analysis of experts. Day was an employee of a
temporary staffing agency working at the Bacardi bottling plant in Jacksonville Florida in 2012. He was killed
90 minutes into the first day of the job – the first job of his life. The film introduces the prospective that the
temporary staffing industry makes workplaces more dangerous, is used to hide the safety records of some of
the biggest employers in the country, and makes the American Dream harder to reach for millions of working
people. With thousands killed in preventable workplaces accidents every year in the US, the film provides a
reminder of the cost of just one individual by vividly looking into the life and perspective of Day’s 17-year-old
sister Antonia.

90 minutes before he was killed on his first day of work as a temporary employee, 21-year-old Day Davis
texted a picture of himself to his girlfriend, excited for their future. Now Day’s sister, 17-year-old Antonia,
searches for answers. An investigation reveals the issues that led to Day’s death and how the $100 billion
temporary staffing industry is putting millions of American workers at risk.

Dave DeSario
tempemployees@gmail.com
(631) 374-6458

Documentary, 2015
TRT 54 min
Dir: David M Garcia
Prod: Dave DeSario

Film Website: http://www.tempfilm.com/film2/
Director’s Website: DavidMGarcia.com
Producer’s Organization: TemporaryEmployees.org

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2014 in Documentary, Retail, Self-Employed/Freelance, Service Workers, Working Class

 

Memory of Past Struggles (Memoria Para Reincidentes)

17 Jul

107min. Argentina. Made by Violeta Bruck, Gabi Jaime and Javier Gabino
Film website

Unions and labor militancy in the 70s: Shows how Argentinian workers were organizing independently of the Peronist labor movement as early as 1969, including in the powerful 1975 General Strike. It also shows the role not only of the bosses but also the government, which helped usher in mass repression eventually leading to a military dictatorship in 1976.

With footage from the period and reminisces of the past struggles, the film shows the strengths and weaknesses of the labor movement. Thousands of workers and labor activists were kidnapped and murdered as part of this US supported military coup in 1976.

In 2013, Argentina was again been rocked by mass general strikes against the economic assault on working people, and this documentary provides an up-close view of the militant trade unionists who are part of the working class history of Argentina.

 

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2014 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

The Conditions of the Working Class In England 

17 Jul

2012 British; 82 min.
Directed by Mike Wayne and Deirdre O’Neill

This film is inspired by Engels’ book written in 1844, The Condition of the Working Class in England. How much has really changed since then?

In 2012 a group of working class people from Manchester and Salford come together to create a theatrical show from scratch based on their own experiences and Engels’ book. They have eight weeks before their first performance. The Condition of the Working Class follows them from the first rehearsal to the first night performance and situates their struggle to get the show on stage in the context of the daily struggles of ordinary people facing economic crisis and austerity politics. The people who came together to do the show turned from a group of strangers, many of whom had never acted before, into The Ragged Collective, in little more than two months.

This film, full of political passion and anger, is a wonderful testament to the creativity, determination and camaraderie of working people that blows the media stereotypes of the working class out of the water.

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Class, Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Labor History, Working Class

 

Jai Bhim Comrade: Blast From The Caste

17 Jul

Director – Anand Patwardhan (180 min) 2012

The recent election in India of a rightwing reactionary government and the collapse of the Congress Party again exposes the basic contradictions within India. The lowest caste, the Dalit or “untouchables,” for thousands of years, was denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and fought for the emancipation of his people. He helped draft India’s Constitution and led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His legend still spreads through poetry and song.

In 1997, a Dalit protest erupted in a Mumbai slum after a statue of B.R. Ambedkar was desecrated. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was a reformist who agitated to end the caste system, helped Gandhi write the Indian constitution and amassed a large following among the Dalit. At the protest, 10 unarmed people were killed when police opened fire. Singer, poet and activist Vilas Ghogre later committed suicide to protest the killings.

Shot over 14 years, this three hour film is jam-packed with information. The film covers the biographies of both Ghogre and Ambedkar as well as Indian politics and the day-to-day lives of the Dalit who are still struggling for freedom and justice in India.

 

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2014 in Discrimination: Racism, Sexism, etc, Documentary, Service Workers, Working Class

 

Nae Pasaran! (They Won’t Pass)

29 Jun

This stunning story of global worker cooperation is told by the recounting of events some 35 years ago, as Augusto Pinochet, backed by the US government, murdered a democratically elected leader, Salvadore Allende. As thousands of union members, students, leftists and all manner of Allende supporters were rounded up into killing centers, Pinochet began using his small aircraft fleet to strafe and attack rebel holdouts in the countryside. Scottish union airplane engine mechanics (where the jets had been built) saw news footage of this brutality and decided to take action to save fellow workers they’d never even known about, much less met. A heroic and moving story.

Directed by: Felipe Bustos Sierra

http://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/films/nae-pasaran/

https://vimeo.com/71027635

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Documentary, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

Tangled Threads

29 Jun

“Tangled Threads” chronicles labor rights activist Kalpona Akter’s organizing efforts in Bangladesh’s garment industry before and after the Rana Plaza building collapse, which claimed the lives of at least 1,138 garment workers. It does so against the backdrop of two very different worlds: New York’s modeling industry, on the one hand, and Bangladesh’s garment industry, on the other. Produced by STZFilms.

Directed by: Sara Ziff

Sara Ziff is a New York-based filmmaker, fashion model, and labor activist. She co-directed and produced the feature documentary “Picture Me” (2009), which shed light on labor issues in the modeling industry, particularly sexual abuse. Currently she serves as co-founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor group for models working in the American fashion industry. Ziff first traveled to Bangladesh in 2012, when she began collaborating with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) to try to organize workers across fashion’s supply chain.

https://www.facebook.com/stzfilms

 

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2014 in Arts/Culture, Big Business/Corporations, Cities-Urban, Class, Consumerism, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Retail, Safety & Health, Textile Industry, Women, Working Class

 

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