Books and films

The Assembly Line / L'Établi

Sejarah Gerakan Buruh Indonesia / History of the Indonesian Labor Movement

The history of the Indonesian labor movement from the Dutch colonial period (1870) to 2000. This film explores the emergence of the working class, how workers built their organizations, the victories of the labor movement during the Independence era, the destruction of the labor movement under Suharto’s dictatorship, and workers’ resistance in the 1990s.

¡Sí se puede!' - Sindicalismo en Colombia

The documentary "'¡Sí se puede!'" (2023) exposes the harsh reality of Colombia, the world's most dangerous country for activists. It follows the perilous struggles of oil worker Moisés Báron and domestic workers Nohelia Mendoza and Nellys Simarra, who face political violence and extreme inequality.

Community and Change: Practical Trade Union Work that Creates Engagement / Fellesskap og forandring: Praktisk fagforeningsarbeid som skaper engasjement

Active and engaged shop stewards and union staff are the key to a strong labour movement that can achieve results in the workplace, in national negotiations, and in politics. But to create this kind of engagement, the labour movement must devote more effort to building strong communities and good relationships in workplaces—developing what are often…

The Riot 1907 / Sulis 1907

In the early 1900s, Sulitjelma Gruber was the second largest industrial company in Norway. The living conditions for the mining workers were very primitive, working conditions hard and harmful to health.

Working Class Goes to Hell

Workers from a factory that has closed reach out to the supernatural in a struggle for personal dignity.

Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Students, and the Indonesian Labor Movement Buruh dan Intelektual: LSM, Mahasiswa, dan Gerakan Buruh Indonesia

This book examines the resurgence of Indonesia’s independent labor movement in the 1990s after decades of repression, focusing on the contested role played by middle-class activists, particularly students and labor NGOs. As trade unions re-emerged following the fall of the New Order regime in 1998, non-worker intellectuals continued to shape labor…

အရှေ့ကနေဝန်းထွက်သည့်ပမာ / Example of a circle coming out of the east

This is a long Burmese novel by writer and politician Thein Pe Myint, which tells the historical background of the Burmese independence movement from 1934 to 1942. The background is formed by movements involving various layers, such as the Kamaryut labor movement, the Yangon poor movement, the university student movement, the peasant anti-landlord…

Drop by drop — there will be a wave!

A film about the everyday work of activists in the "Be Like Nina" union movement. The movement was created after Nina Kozlovskaya wrote on Facebook about working conditions.

Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work

This 724-page Handbook develops a global and intersectional approach to the political economy of work, labour relations and workers. It examines exploitation, class formation, capital accumulation, migration, digital and reproductive labour, trade unionism, workers’ resistance and social movements.

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech

The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods.

Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones

Fire Department, Inc

A suburban firefighter’s labor union finds itself under a different kind of fire when the Village Mayor announces he’s privatizing their department to save money. What results is a five year long legal battle with the potential to change labor law for the entire country.

Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried

Examines the 1937 police shooting of striking steelworkers at Chicago’s Republic Steel & the suppressed newsreel film of the incident.

UPS Strike: Lessons from '97

The story of the Teamsters’ successful strike at UPS in 1997.

Muiterij / Mutiny How our world is tilting

Mutiny' captures the excitement of world events today. In Europe, life is in turmoil even after the pandemic.

Sons of the Desert / Hijos del desierto

The story begins in the far north of Chile , around 1907. At that time, a terrible event occurred, known throughout history as the Santa María School Massacre in Iquique .

Ll nous reste la colère / We still have anger

The film about the fight of Poutou and his comrades against the closure of the Ford factory in Blanquefort

The Syndicalist

The true story of Maureen Kearney (Isabelle Huppert), the head union representative of a French multinational nuclear powerhouse. She became a whistleblower when she revealed a secret deal between the state-owned utility Electricité de France and a Chinese power company, which Kearney feared would transfer sensitive nuclear technology from Areva to China…

The Loud Spring: Together out of the Climate Crisis / Der laute Frühling: Gemeinsam aus der Klimakrise

A documentary and animated film about the climate crisis and the political power of workers. It connects climate activism with strikes, trade-union organizing and workers’ self-organization, asking how people can build the power needed for a profound social transformation beyond green capitalism.

Unrest / Unrueh

It tells a fictionalized account of Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin's 1877 visit to Switzerland, where he gets involved in a labor struggle of watchmaking workers suffering under increasing workplace rationalization and early taylorism.

Enola Holmes 2

Enola opens her own detective agency, but struggles to get clients unlike her famous detective brother Sherlock Holmes. A factory girl named Bessie asks Enola to help find her missing sister Sarah Chapman, labor organizer.

Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War

So I have been reading some 70s memoirs of class struggle unionism and just read this one. Highly recommend this book and especially the first 2/3 which show an attempt to build class struggle unionism on the shop floor.

The 1934 Waterfront Strike: Solidarity on the Docks

In the Belly of the Beast”, History of Nehawu 1987-2017

NEHAWU was founded on 27th and 28th June 1987 by workers from the Education, Health, Government and Social Welfare sectors.

El gran movimiento / The Great Movement

In present-day Bolivia, Elder takes a week-long trip to La Paz with his young miner friends to demand their jobs back. However, Elder suddenly falls ill, experiencing frequent shortness of breath and difficulty breathing after finding work at a local market.

Anger, Hope – Action? Organizing und soziale Kämpfe im Zeitalter des Zorns

In this book, Slave Cubela presents a personal and political assessment of his work, primarily as an organizer. He seeks to discuss trade union organizing not in the abstract, but against the backdrop of social conditions in Germany, and to link the German context with global developments that are becoming increasingly explosive.

Arqueología de la Dignidad Obrera / Archeology of the Worker´s Dignity

The documentary gives a voice to organized workers through the eyes of legendary trade union leader, Pepe Pinzón, and his struggle to maintain and save the trade union organization CNT and later the CGTG, especially during those terrible times of persecution and assassination of social, peasant and trade union leaders in Guatemala.

De Onmisbaren: Een ode aan mijn sociale klasse / The Indispensables: An Ode to My Social Class.

This is the story of your lives, your perseverance, and your sacrifice, of my struggle with that sacrifice. This is the story of a class that seemed to no longer exist.

Dear Comrades!

The film tells about the shooting of a demonstration of workers in Novocherkassk in 1962. Lyudmila is a party worker of the local city committee, and a staunch communist.