any suggestions for good labor/union movies? I'm in the mood...

Union!

Here's a clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IJZx4S6NT0

EXCELLENT movie.

And, yup, it's amazing.

This is a great John Sayles movie :bounce:

I've seen it sooo many times. Like the Godfather, it just gets better.

:applause:

... your excellent suggestion.

Michael Moore's first movie in 1989.

Coincidently, I checked a copy out of my Podunk socialist Carnegie Library just this afternoon.

One of my favorites

in a classic science fiction silent films kind of way...

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Metropolis_Restored/70132372#height3937

"Metropolis Restored
(The Complete Metropolis)
1927NR 148 minutes

In the year 2026, when the populace is divided between workers who must live underground and the wealthy, who enjoy a futuristic city of splendor, a man from the upper class abandons his privileged life to join oppressed workers in a revolt. Perhaps the most famous & influential of all silent films, German director Fritz Lang's masterpiece has now been magnificently restored to include the original 1927 orchestral score. This version includes 25 minutes of additional footage."


THESE ARE YOUR BROTHERS

I seem to remember that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29

I don't even remember when the Academy Awards began

:shrug:

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/union-organizer/

go to imdb.com and do a search for subject then put in union.

:toast:

Hoffa made me understand why my late Uncle (#2 on the truck driver seniority list..I forget which company) hated Bobby Kennedy. Hoffa in the early days did so much for organizing truck drivers. When my Uncle returned from WWII, the first thing he got was his union card and his job. So when Kennedy went after Hoffa, my Uncle saw it as an attack on him.

6 people in my family all Union members, International Painters (who alerted me last week that the painting on the floor above me (apt. building)was oil based)-had that stopped right away, American Postal Workers Union, Teamsters, NEA, retired American Postal Workers Union, and my late Dad was Brotherhood of Railway and Maintenance.

My Dad hated Reagan, called him a goddamn fucking union buster, Dad would have been 81 tomorrow, proud Korean War Veteran, proud former Marine but prouder Union member.

This is what we are seeing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFtVm2WkUVE

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I don't think so, hell by the end of the week I will have most of my collegues here. I maybe wrong,but it seems like my degree in communication works here. I think I will roll with it.

“Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.” Pirsig

But if you are really here because you're on our side, then welcome to DU and we're glad to have you.

is one of my favs (along with Matewan). Not strictly a labor but a left political thriller.

Bread and Roses is one of the more recent

The Molly McGuires.

Mant documentaries but not sure that's your preference.

Product Description
"Solidarity! All for One and One for All!" With that slogan, the Industrial Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies, took to organizing unskilled workers into one big union and changing the course of history. Along the way to winning an eight-hour workday and fair wages in the early 20th century, the Wobblies were one of the few unions to be racially and sexually integrated and often met with imprisonment, violence, and the privations of prolonged strikes. This award-winning film airs a provocative look at the forgotten American history of this most radical of unions, screening the unforgettable and still-fiery voices of Wobbly members--lumberjacks, migratory workers, and silk weavers--in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Eerily echoing current times, THE WOBBLIES boldly investigates a nation torn by naked corporate greed and the red-hot rift between the industrial masters and the rabble-rousing workers in the field and factory. Replete with gorgeous archival footage, the film pays tribute to American workers who took the ideals of equality and free speech seriously enough to die for them. Directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer, THE WOBBLIES is a rare and challenging invitation to rethink both past and present through the eyes of an organization largely omitted from memory. DVD Features: Filmmaker Interview with Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer; Interview with Historian and Author Paul Buhle; Original Recordings of IWW Songs; Exclusive Photo Gallery; Filmmaker Biographies; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

http://www.amazon.com/Wobblies-Judy-Irola/dp/B000FBFZ2M/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_of_the_Earth

Salt of the Earth (1954) is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their involvement in communist politics.<1>

The movie became a historical phenomenon and has a cult following due to how the United States establishment (politicians, journalists, studio executives, and some trade unions) dealt with it. Salt of the Earth is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view.

The film centers on a long and difficult strike led by Mexican-American and White miners. It is based on the real-life 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico; in the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc", and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico". The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike.



Killer of Sheep (1977)
Directed, written, produced by Charles Burnett. Cast: Henry Gayle Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, Jack Drummond. This gripping portrait of Stan, a Black man employed in a Los Angeles slaughterhouse, is internationally regarded as a film classic. Stan's grueling work--gutting and cleaning the sheep carcasses--infects his entire life, including his relationships with his wife, children and friends. The film hauntingly evokes the physical detail and bittersweet emotions of working class life with compassion and honesty. Declared a National Treasure in 1990. Bonus features on DVD 8738: Charles Burnett's acclaimed short films, Several friends (1969), The horse (1973), and When it rains (1995) ; Killer of Sheep commentary track with Charles Burnett and Richard Pena, Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. 79 min. DVD 8738; also DVD 6940; vhs 999:1729

http://www.killerofsheep.com/



Our Daily Bread (1934)
Directed by King Vidor. Cast: Tom Keene, Karen Morley, Barbara Pepper, Addison Richards. Depression movie about a collective farm and its development as a rural community of the unemployed. The unemployed portrayed include a jobless city couple, a Swedish farmer and his family, and other victims of the industrial-financial collapse. 1984. 100 min. DVD 691; vhs 999:65

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Daily_Bread_(1934_film)



silkwood

Silkwood (1983)
Directed by Mike Nichols. Cast: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid, Fred Ward, Ron Silver. Based on a true story. When Karen Silkwood becomes contaminated with plutonium at her job and voices her protest at the indifference and denial of her company, she becomes a threat to the entire nuclear industry and the government agencies that monitor it. 131 min. DVD 8913


seen & rec those above: haven't seen these but they sound good:

10,000 Black Men Named George (2002)
Director, Robert Townsend. Cast: Andre Braugher, Karen Eyo, Charles S. Dutton, Mario Van Peebles, Ardon Bess, Carla Brothers, Kedar Brown, Amanda Brugel, Joel Gordon. A dramatization of the true story of the formation of the first black-controlled union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Asa Philip Randolph, a black journalist establishes a voice for the forgotten workers of the Pullman Rail Company, where all black porters were simply named "George", after George Pullman, the first person to employ emancipated slaves. 95 in. DVD 1850

Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class
Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants, stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy. Directed by Loretta Alper. c2005. 62 min. DVD 4912

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/labormovies.html


matewan is a good film, but depressing -- as is killer of sheep above.

norma rae is uplifting but unrealistic imo.

it surprises me how few labor films there are that are both realistic & inspirational.

so many on the list above are records of failure, corruption, etc.

so few fictionalize the real, inspirational triumphs of the labor movement.

i guess that would be the threat of a good example.

James Earl Jones said it was one of his faves that he ever made!
Mine too.
I lent it out many times until one day it never came home :(

Please take note that two of them, Norma Rae and The Molly Maguires, were made by my favorite unheralded Hollywood filmmaker, Martin Ritt.

The story of Woody Guthrie. You should appreciate this story... it begins in Pampas, Texas. :hi:

edited to correct typo: Pampa...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212826/

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjM5MzQ2NDQzNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwOTA4MDM5._V1._SY317_CR4,0,214,317_.jpg

Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Seriously. :-)