Subject: Labor
Though labor strikes are not an entirely modern phenomenon, the fight of workers and their struggles for basic human rights, including the organizations that backed them and, at times, fought against them, are a mostly modern affair.
A Decent Factory (Nokia: A Decent Factory)
- Director: Thomas Balmès
- Release Date: 2004
- Production Country: United Kingdom, Finland, France, Denmark, Australia
Employees of the Finnish company, Nokia, travel to the Chinese factory where their products are made to investigate human rights abuses, where they find some problems but apparently nothing really to write home (or make a movie) about.
Brassed Off
- Director: Mark Herman
- Release Date: 1996
- Production Country: United Kingdom, United States
The fortunes of the town's brass band are tied up in the fate of the local coal mine that is in danger of closing, but with a national championship competition on the horizon, Danny desperately tries to keep the band together. Gloria's arrival helps, though no one is quite certain why the lovely flugelhorn player has returned to her home village at just this moment; ultimately, the band members, like the miners, must decide whether to move forward together or go their separate ways.
Bread and Roses (Bread & Roses)
- Director: Ken Loach
- Release Date: 2000
- Production Country: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland
Maya's dream of a better life in the United States seems to have come true when she and her sister, Rosa, get jobs a janitors, but the women must deal with a capricious boss and low wages, always under the threat of deportation if their undocumented status becomes an issue. The stakes rise when a labor organizer, Simon, arrives to help the workers organize; but while Maya sees him as a savior, Rosa's husband is ill and she is desperate to keep her job, even with its minimal benefits.
Butte, America: The Saga of a Hard Rock Mining Town
- Director: Pamela Roberts
- Release Date: 2008
- Production Country: United States
The discovery of copper in Butte, Montana in the 1880s launches the small mining town on a wild ride of greed, ambition, prosperity, labor strikes, and vice. But when the copper runs out, so do the mine owners, leaving largely forgotten the city that helped launch labor rights and electrify the nation—literally, its only legacy the environmental devastation left in the wake of a glorious past.
Chircales (The Brickmakers)
- Director: Marta Rodríguez, Jorge Silva
- Release Date: 1972
- Production Country: Columbia
A family of poverty-stricken brickmakers in Columbia provide a view into labor and living for Indigenous Columbians.
Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh)
- Director: F.W. Murnau
- Release Date: 1924
- Production Country: Germany
An elderly man is unjustly transferred from his prestigious position as a doorman at an exclusive hotel and struggles to deal with the disdain of his neighbors as well as his own despair at being assigned to work in the laundry room.
Germinal
- Director: Claude Berri
- Release Date: 1993
- Production Country: France, Belgium, Italy
In late 19th century France, miners are oppressed, exploited, and suffering crushing poverty, so when they discover their pay is going to be cut even further, they realize they must stand together if they want to obtain better wages and working conditions. Led by the newly arrived, idealistic Etienne, the miners eventually strike—with disastrous consequences for the village but not, perhaps, for future generations.
Germinal
- Director: Albert Capellani
- Release Date: 1913
- Production Country: France
In late 19th century France, miners are oppressed, overworked, and underpaid, but their greedy owners plan to cut their wages even further in order to raise profits. Led by the idealistic Etienne, the miners strike, but the owners are determined not to give in to the demands of an unruly mob.
Germinal
- Director: Yves Allégret
- Release Date: 1963
- Production Country: France, Italy, Hungary
In late 19th century France, mining is a dangerous, poorly paid occupation, but when Etienne is fired from his railway job for union organizing, mining is the only work he can find. When his fellow miners discover that their pay is going to be cut even further in order to increase profits, Etienne leads the protests and the eventual strike, but none of the miners were prepared for just how determined the mine's owners are.
Harlan County U.S.A.
- Director: Barbara Kopple
- Release Date: 1976
- Production Country: United States
In 1972, company profits are skyrocketing while the miners and their families live in squalor, but when the miners go on strike, neither the national United Mine Workers of America union nor the mining company seem to have their best interests at heart, and the result is a year of struggle, deprivation, and even death for the community of Harper's Valley.
I Compagni (The Organizer)
- Director: Mario Monicelli
- Release Date: 1963
- Production Country: Italy, France, Yugoslavia
Factory workers in a mill near Turin are being exploited, but cannot focus their protest about the horrible working conditions until Professor Sinigaglia arrives and helps them to organize an effective strike; but it's not clear who, exactly, sent the professor to their aid.
La classe operaia va in paradiso (Lulu the Tool or The Working Class Goes to Heaven)
- Director: Elio Petri
- Release Date: 1971
- Production Country: Italy
Beloved by management, hated by his fellow workers, Lulu loses a finger in a work accident, after which he loses his job and his lover. With this new understanding of the average worker's plight, Lulu joins the union's political movement, hoping to get his own life back in order.
Made in Dagenham
- Director: Nigel Cole
- Release Date: 2010
- Production Country: United Kingdom
When Rita meets with a union representative about getting better working conditions for the small group of women in the car factory, she discovers that they are not only working in sub-standard conditions compared to their male co-workers, but also being paid as unskilled labor and therefore making less than men who do the same kind of work. Angry at this inequality, she and the rest of the women in the factory stage a walk-out strike that will ultimately lead to a nationwide outcry for equal pay for equal work.
Made in L.A.
- Director: Almudena Carracedo
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: United States
Three Latina garment workers take on the sweatshop industry of Los Angeles, agitating for better working conditions and better pay, and find meaning and hope in their personal lives in the process.
Matewan
- Director: John Sayles
- Release Date: 1987
- Production Country: United States
A union organizer attempts to help the oppressed miners in a West Virginia coal mining community, but their own prejudices threaten to be as destructive to his efforts as the Mining Company's tactics are.
Metropolis
- Director: Fritz Lang
- Release Date: 1927
- Production Country: Germany
In the world of the future, Freder and his friends enjoy a life of ease and pleasure, unaware that their wonderful Utopia stands on the back of an entire society of hopeless workers who live and die in service to the machines–at least, until a beautiful woman named Maria steps forward in a determined effort to reconnect the hands and head of the machine through her heart.
Mon Oncle Antoine
- Director: Claude Jutra
- Release Date: 1971
- Production Country: Canada
As an orphan, Benoit's life has not been easy, but he has his moments of joy and fun, especially as he works with his uncle, Antoin, helping with sales and displays and enjoying snowball fights with his friends. However, Benoit's childish fun fades in the face of the local mine owner's contempt for his employees and the tragic death of a young man on Christmas Eve, leaving Benoit to contemplate both the perils and the benefits of stepping into adulthood.
Norma Rae
- Director: Martin Ritt
- Release Date: 1979
- Production Country: United States
Frustrated by the unhealthy conditions and low pay in the textile mill where she works, Norma Rae joins forces with a visiting union leader and tries to organize an election to unionize the workers, while the management of the mill does all they can to stop her, and her husband just wishes she’d come home, cook supper, and be with her family.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
- Director: Caspar Wrede
- Release Date: 1970
- Production Country: United Kingdom, Norway
Ivan Denisovich, wrongfully convicted of spying for the Germans in World War II and sent to a work camp in Siberia, fills his diary with each day's defeats–being forced to work in inhumane conditions while sick and never having any time to do more than just work and survive–and its victories, such as obtaining a small share of a fellow inmate's care package from home and surviving one more day.
Putyovka v zhizn (Road to Life)
- Director: Nikolai Ekk
- Release Date: 1931
- Production Country: Soviet Union
Taken off the streets and given a commune to run in the hopes that they can become productive citizens, young Russian boys exemplify the best and worst of human nature in this stark film.