Books and films
Books and films that help us understand collective action.
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They were 100.000 People /100 Bin Kişiydiler Belgeseli
1990-91 Big Mining Strike and the march of Ankara 100 thousand people, the documentary, the Turkish working class history sheds light on a period of the history of the work.
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Danny Greene: The Rise and Fall of the Irishman
Centring on the 24 days of the first-ever strike at Lakeside, this film is a nuanced portrait of people working together and adapting to change. They are people like Peter Jany Khwai, who escaped war in Sudan, wears an African shirt and a cowboy hat, and affirms his Canadian identity as well as his determination to fight for his rights.
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New in Town
A witty tearjerker comedy. Businesswoman Lucy Hill from sunny Florida travels to the small town of New Ulm in snow-covered Minnesota to carry out mass layoffs at a food processing plant.
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The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Truck:_Closing_of_a_GM_Plant
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Bastard Boy
The story of a major conflict between the workers, united in the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), entrepreneurs, and the government. The film presents four "truths" in this "war," from four different perspectives: union leader Greg Combet, lawyer Josh Bornstein, docker Sean McSwain, and the managing director of the company "Patrick Stevedores" Chris…
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24 Days in Brooks
In a decade, tiny Brooks, Alberta has been transformed from a socially conservative, primarily Caucasian town to one of the most diverse places in Canada. Hijabs have become commonplace, downtown bars feature calypso and residents speak 90 different languages.
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Miss F / Signorina Effe
Emma Martano, born into a working-class family of southern origins transplanted to Turin , is employed at FIAT in the IT sector.
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El astillero (Disculpen las molestias) / The Shipyard (Sorry for the Inconvenience)
This is the story of the workers at a small shipyard in northern Spain who, for years, have been forced to take to the streets to defend their jobs. It is another chapter—perhaps one of the last—in the fight against the industrial dismantling of a region, Asturias, which has been in constant restructuring.
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Made in L.A.
The 70-minute film tells the story of a three-year struggle of three Latina workers who challenged their employer—a trendy clothing retailer in Los Angeles, Forever 21.
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Mother Jones: America’s Most Dangerous Woman
https://laborfilms.com/2012/04/20/mother-jones-americas-most-dangerous-woman-2007/
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The Return of Osvaldo Bayer / La vuelta de Osvaldo Bayer
The film is dedicated to the veteran of the civil movement, O. Bayer, and his 40-year-long efforts to restore the truth about the events related to the Patagonian Tragedy of 1921-1922.
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The Gama Strike - A Victory For All Workers
In 2005 Turkish workers at the Gama company in Ireland went on strike over the non-payment of wages. With the active assistance of the Socialist Party, they won.
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Strike - the Hero of Gdańsk / Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig
The film portrays the labor movement in Poland over a roughly twenty-year period, from the unrest of the 1960s to the open uprising of the 1980s, led by Lech Wałęsa. The character of Agnieszka Kowalska is based on a real historical figure, Anna Walentynowicz, who, alongside Wałęsa, was one of the founders of the free trade union movement.
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Maquilapolis
The exploitation & struggles of Mexican maquila workers in Tijuana.
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Walkout
Walkout is a 2006 HBO film based on a true story of the 1968 East L.A. walkouts.
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The Last Cry of Madness / Des Wahnsinns letzter Schrei
In 2005, German companies were making record profits while unemployment was rising and unemployed people were increasingly pressured. The film examines how these realities coexist, including forced one-euro work and life below the poverty line under the Hartz IV reform.
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The Heart of the Earth / El corazón de la tierra
Spain, at the end of the 19th century. A powerful English company obtains a concession to exploit the Riotinto mines in Huelva for 30 years.
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Twenty Years Is Nothing / Veinte años no es nada
The experience of workers’ self-management at the Numax factory, in the late seventies, was captured in a documentary that the workers themselves decided should be made, and which they commissioned Joaquim Jordà to direct at the moment when the factory was about to close. It was titled “Numax Presents…” (1980).
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North Country
After her marriage falls apart, Josie Aimes returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota in search of work. She has two children, and to support them, she is forced to take a job at a mine where nearly all the local men, including her father, work.
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Fasinpat
Zanón was a ceramics factory in Argentina's Neuquén Province that went bankrupt after its owner laid off half the workers during the 1999-2002 crisis. When it closed in 2001, former employees took control and reopened it as FaSinPat (Fábrica sin patrones - Factory Without Bosses), becoming one of Argentina's worker-run factories.
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Entreatos
In 2002, the Brazilian director João Moreira Salles followed with his crew the candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva in his campaign for President of Brazil. The collection of footages in meetings, debates, hotels, airplanes and other places with his political allies and friends and acquaintances have been edited in an interesting documentary about the…
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PEÕES / Pawns
The documentary delves into the search for ABC region metallurgists from São Paulo who participated in the largest strikes of the 20th century. The movement changed the face of Brazilian trade unionism, provided the basis for the creation of the Workers Party (PT) and made emerge the figure of leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
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The Take
It tells the story of workers in Buenos Aires, Argentina who reclaim control of a closed Forja auto plant. By doing this, they embodied the anarcho-syndicalist model.
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Rebel Frontier
Of all the immigrant groups that arrived in the United States a century ago, the Finns and the Irish were among the most restless. Both groups moved westward in search of a better life.
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Murdered Coca-Cola Unionists in Colombia / Ermordete Coca-Cola-Gewerkschafter
Every year, trade unionists are murdered in Colombia. Corporations such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé play an important role in this.
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Waging a Living
Waging a Living is a 2004 documentary film that addresses the issue of the American dream and whether or not hard work will invariably improve your condition. Examining the lives of four Americans in California and the Northeast who work full-time jobs but are still having trouble making ends meet
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Where Do You Stand? Stories from an American Mill
The long struggle of textile workers at Cannon Mills in Kannapolis, NC to unionize.