Books and films

The Price of Coal (Play for Today)

A two-part drama about miners in the fictional town of Milton Colliery in South Yorkshire. Part One: The Price of Coal: Meet the People focuses on the town’s preparations for an upcoming visit by Prince Charles.

Class Struggle: Film from the Clyde

A documentary made with shipyard workers during the 18-month occupation and work-in at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders from 1971 to 1972. After the government announced its decision to liquidate the company, the yards were occupied and managed by a joint shop stewards' committee.

The Struggle of Hospital Workers / La Lutte des travailleurs d'hôpitaux

Short Quebec film that documents a pivotal moment in the labor movement within the province’s healthcare sector. Through testimonies and on-the-ground footage, it follows hospital employees—orderlies, nurses, and support staff—who rise up against poor working conditions, understaffing, and government austerity measures.

Cantata de Chile

The film is set in 1907 in northern Chile, where workers from the nitrate mines, controlled by British capital, organized an economic strike. The strike was brutally suppressed by the army, and the event became known as the "Bloody Massacre of Iquique." The director used an allegorical language to depict the history of the exploitation of the country's…

Kanavan Manaivi

The film, originally made for the Tamil audience of Indian cinema, later had remakes in Telugu ("Sita Ramulu" in 1980) and Hindi ("Haisiyat" in 1984). Shankar is the leader of the workers' union, and Chitra is the owner of the factory.

Letters from Marusia / Actas de Marusia

The film sheds light on one of the shameful chapters in Chile's history – the brutal suppression of a workers' uprising at the saltpeter mines in 1907. The screenplay for the film by Chilean director Miguel Littín is based on a novel by Patricio Manns, written from the accounts of eyewitnesses to the mass killings and torture of workers.

Roots of Blood / Raíces de sangre

On a roadside in Texas, a man wipes away his traces and abandons a truck containing the bodies of undocumented Mexican migrants. Elsewhere, a young lawyer named Carlos—who at first only wants to make money through his profession—joins a group of Chicanos who are fighting for the rights of undocumented workers employed at the Morris factory, owned by Mr.

Tillitsmannen

The film is roughly about Norwegian political history in the period 1907 - 1963 . Gerhardsen talks about how the Norwegian Labor Party during this period grew and gained a political leadership position in the labor movement and in the Norwegian parliamentary system.

Man of Marble

A film student, Agnieszka, decides to make a documentary about the former worker Mateusz Birkut, once revered as a skilled stonemason, but later forgotten. A man of labor, Birkut became famous and believed he could help his fellow workers, thinking that his voice would be heard.

Three Days in Szczecin

A 90-minute drama by Leslie Woodhead focuses on the January 1971 strike and the intense three-day negotiations between the strike committee of Szczecin's Warski Shipyard, led by crane operator Edmund Baluka, and the top brass of Communist Poland, including Central Committee Secretary Edward Gierek, Prime Minister Piotr Jaroszewicz, and others. The film…

Bound for Glory

Set during the Great Depression. In 1936, he left his devastated hometown of Pampa, Texas, in search of work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.

Harlan County, USA

The film covering the "Brookside Strike" when 180 miners, along with their wives, stood up against the management of the coal mine and the mining and processing plant owned by Duke Power.

The Great Sit-Down - Yesterday's Witness in America

The Last Tycoon

The boss of the fictional film studio Monroe Star is making a movie despite the Great Depression and the death of his wife. He has to deal with the inflated demands of an aging movie star and the tough conditions imposed by the unions...

Sunday Too Far Away

The mid-1950s, deep in the South Australian bush. The sheep shearers, drinking like sailors and working like oxen, live a tough life.

Apuntes para la historia del movimiento obrero cubano / Notes for a History of the Cuban Labor Movement

A history of the struggles of the Cuban proletariat from the 19th century to the triumph of the Revolution. It highlights the decisive role played by the union leader Lázaro Peña.

Streik

Norwegian docudrama from 1975, directed by Oddvar Bull Tuhus. The film is loosely based on Tor Obrestad's novel Sauda!

Pay Off / Diyet

Lütfi Akad describes a factory and the surrounding workers' relations of the family who migrated in this last film of the trilogy.

Rebellion in Patagonia

This film was immediately banned by the authorities, and most of the cast was forced into exile abroad. Only ten years later, after a democratic government was established in Argentina, the film became available to the general public.

They Kill Me If I Don’t Work, and If I Work, They Kill Me: The Workers’ Strike at the INSUD Factory / Me matan si no trabajo y si trabajo me matan: La huelga obrera en la fábrica INSUD

A documentary about the situation of metalworkers who, due to lead exposure and poor working conditions, became ill and died from saturnism (lead poisoning). The film includes one of the last public appearances of Congressman Rodolfo Ortega Peña, who was assassinated by paramilitary forces (the AAA) days after the documentary was completed.

Wages and Love / Lohn und Liebe

This film is about the struggles women face, and how they are often even more difficult than those of men. The events take place at a telephone factory in Berlin, where the workforce is made up of women and the managers are men (how recognizable!).

Sagina

The film (the Hindi version of Sagina Mahato, 1970) is based on a real episode of the labor struggle on tea plantations in the Himalayas in Northeast India during 1942-1943 but features fictional characters. The protagonist, Sagina, is an honest and spirited yet politically inexperienced union leader who organizes the workers' fight at a factory in Siliguri.

TEEVRA MADHYAM

Shama and Ravi are members of the Marxist party. Shama is a fan of classical Indian music, while Ravi quotes Marx and Marxist philosophy and "the needs of the masses" at every turn.

Apuntes

The film is set around a harsh taxi-drivers’ strike in Mexico City, inspired by the real events of 1950. The main figures are Quintanilla, a corrupt union leader, and Eduardo, an opposition activist who tries to organize the taxi drivers legally and fight for justice.

Los albañiles / The Bricklayers

This short documentary portrays the exploitative working conditions faced by a group of construction workers in Tula, Hidalgo, in the aftermath of a strike called by their unio

A strike is not a Sunday school /

The film was shot with trade union support during a strike in the Burger & Jacobi piano factory in Biel in June 1974. The reason for the strike in the carpenter was that the company no longer wanted to pay the agreed thirteenth monthly salary.

The Miners’ Film

The film documents, from inside and for the labour movement, the miners’ strike of 1974. It examines the industrial action against the Conservative government’s Phase 3 incomes policy, the miners’ historical experience, memories of the 1926 General Strike, the failures of nationalisation and the struggle over energy and employment policy.

Conversaciones con trabajadores / Conversations with Chilean Workers

As a counterpoint to the first film, “Chile 1973 – The workers do not participate, they are the government,” which shows the revolutionary process of the Popular Unity from the perspective of its leaders, this second production, “Conversations with Chilean Workers,” offers an image of how the social base of Chilean society—the very people to whom the…

A Shot in the Factory / Laukaus tehtaalla

An elderly man rides his bicycle to his factory in a small town. He enters the office of the manager, pulls out a sawed-off shotgun from under his coat, and kills him.

Namak Haraam / Traitor

The film focuses on two friends: Vicky from a wealthy family and Soma from a poor. Vicky takes charge of the family factory, but when he clashes with the leader of the local labor union, he calls on Soma for help.