50m; Vietnam
Director: Tran Phuong Thao
Synopsis: Thousands of young women now work in foreign owned factories in Vietnam for approximately $2 a day. This film shows the lives of these young rural women who end up in a Japanese Canon factory in the Hanoi area. Hoping to make a new life with many consumer goods around them they are ground up in the capitalist system and their dreams and illusions about the new Vietnam are crushed.
2.5m; U.K.
Director: Gary Williams
Synopsis: Three school meals workers talk about their jobs and working for Chartwell’s. Filmed as part of the UNISON Three Companies project organizing blitz on 4th November 2009
44m; Canada
Director: Michael Connolly
Synopsis: Covers the recent recession’s effect on workers, auto workers specifically. Also touches on pension and severance issues. Great footage and editing. Narrated by Jian Gomes.
8m; U.S.
Director: Workers Film and Photo League of the WIR
Synopsis: Unemployment demo in Union Square in 1931
50m; U.S.
Director: Andrew Freund
Synopsis: Three weeks before Christmas 2008, in the depths of the economic crisis, Chicago company Republic Windows and Doors told their workforce that the factory was closing shop. Republic executives complained about dwindling sales due to the crash of the housing market. Three days later, when the Republic employees came in to pick up their final paychecks, they were informed that they would not be paid for their final week or receive their accrued vacation pay. Their insurance benefits were cut immediately, and they were denied the 60-day severance guaranteed under the federal WARN Act.
Contact: Labor Beat in Chicago 312-316-4458 videoinsurgent@gmail.com
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.
54m; France
Director: Marie France Collard
Synopsis: Effects of globalization on European and Asian women.
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
29m; India/Denmark
Director: Jens Pedersen
Synopsis: Manual scavengers in India and ‘the most disgusting job on earth’-picking up human excreta with one’s bare hands.
Contact: jjp@net.dialog.dk (+45) 40757172 (Work)
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