Books and films

Strike

To mark the 100th anniversary of free trade unions in Luxembourg (1916-2016), the OGBL commissioned director Andy Bausch to make a documentary film tracing the remarkable history of the free trade union movement in Luxembourg over the past 100 years.

Ditching the Fear: The Logistics Workers’ Movement in Italy / Die Angst wegschmeißen: Die Bewegung der Logistikarbeiter_innen in Italien

Since 2008, northern Italy has been the scene of extraordinary events. Companies, politicians and the media are using the crisis to further erode workers’ already fragile rights.

Worker Control and Workplace Democracy: An Alternative Labour History

Edited by Dario Azzellini, this 352-page volume examines historical and contemporary forms of workers’ control, self-management and workplace democracy. It argues that the global financial crisis generated new shop-floor militancy, radical protests and workplace takeovers.

Fighting for Total Person Unionism

During the 1950s and 1960s, labor leaders Harold Gibbons and Ernest Calloway championed a new kind of labor movement that regarded workers as "total persons" interested in both workplace affairs and the exercise of effective citizenship in their communities. Working through Teamsters Local 688 and viewing the city of St.

Superstore

The NBC series Superstore starts its fifth season this week, and you should be watching it. This good-hearted workplace comedy about a big-box store in St.

Greves no Brasil / Strikes in Brazil: From 1968 to the Present Day. Testimonials from leaders.

This work contains the testimonies of twelve leaders from various professional categories and regions of the country, who played a leading role in important strike movements, starting in the late 1960s. Its reading is essential for all those who wish to reflect on the struggles of workers for a society with greater justice and equity.

Two Days, One Night

After treatment and returning to work, Sandra, a mother of two children, finds out that the employees' meeting decided to fire her to to avoid losing the yearly bonus of one thousand euros. Only two colleagues did not vote "yes." Juliette, Sandra's friend, convinced the supervisor to repeat the vote due to the pressure placed on the workers.

Battlegrounds: Eastern European Workers and Social Dumping in Construction

Based on documentary accounts of conflicts at six Danish construction sites, the book examines the scale of social dumping and the conditions faced by Eastern European workers. It follows struggles over wages and working conditions involving construction workers, trade unions, foreign intermediaries and contractors, placing these conflicts in the context…

The Precariat and the New Class Struggle: Transformations of the Contemporary Working Class and Its Forms of Struggle / Przeobrażenia współczesnej klasy pracowniczej i jej form walki

Around the world, the situation of workers is deteriorating. Attacks on trade unions, the destabilization of labor relations, the dictatorship of flexibility, and pauperization are becoming widespread.

Lotta senza classe (A Classless Struggle)

Three different ways of being metalworkers. Three different ways of dealing with the crisis, three different life prospects.

Occupy, Resist, Produce – RiMaflow / Occupare, Resistere, Produrre – RiMaflow

The film follows the workers of RiMaflow, a former Maflow car-parts plant in Trezzano sul Naviglio near Milan. After the factory was closed following a fraudulent bankruptcy, former workers occupied the plant and began to reinvent it as a self-managed project.

Senzachiederepermesso

The story of the worker Pietro Perotti, employed at Fiat Mirafiori from 1969 to 1985, who took part in the workers' struggles by dealing with communication within the factory, making stickers, wall newspapers, writings and drawings in the bathrooms, papier-mâché and foam rubber puppets, turning the marches into "street theater". With his camera Perotti…

Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers and the Egyptian Revolution

Accounts of the Arab Spring often focus on the role of youth coalitions, the use of social media, and the tactics of the Tahrir Square occupation. This authoritative and original book argues that collective action by organised workers played a fundamental role in the Egyptian revolution, which erupted after years of strikes and social protests.

Workers of Glass – The Making of Class among Paşabahçe Workers / Camın İşçileri – Paşabahçe İşçilerinin Sınıf Olma Öyküsü

Miners shot down

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more.

Cart / Kateu

Sun Hi, a mother of two children, works as a cashier in a large supermarket, believing that hard work will secure a good future for her children. However, the company suddenly announces the dismissal of her and other temporary workers.

ReMine, the latest workers' movement

“There’s a fire burning in Asturias that’s warming all of Spain, because the entire mining region has risen up there.” More than a fire, as Sánchez Ferlosio said, it was a blazing inferno that erupted in the 2012 Asturian miners’ strike: the last workers’ movement, a display of epic courage and kamikaze integrity. The road blockades, the miners’…

Still the Enemy Within

Still the Enemy Within is a unique insight into one of history's most dramatic events: the 1984-85 British Miners' Strike. No experts.

The Pride

Based on a true story, it depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who seek contact with Welsh miners during the Miners' Strike of 1984-1985 in Britain. They are ready to help, though this area is a harsh backwater where they'd be better off not showing up.

Labor's Turning Point: 1934 Minneapolis Truckers Strike

Full-length documentary on the 1934 Truckers Strikes that transformed Minneapolis into a union town and prompted passage of the labor law that made collective bargaining government policy.

Mother Jones and Her Children

Pencils Down: The 100 Days Of The Writers Guild Strike

The story of the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-08 that pitted Hollywood's writers against the major studios.

The Hand That Feeds

Undocumented sandwich workers in NYC struggle against abusive conditions.

Cesar Chavez

In the mid-1960s in California, two groups of Latino organizers formed a union for farm laborers (braceros) from the countless Mexican migrants. One of the groups was led by the legendary César Chávez.

Memory for Repeat Offenders" Workers' Struggle and Militancy in the 1970s

The film offers an original perspective on the 1970s, from its thematic choices to its formal production, which renews previous audiovisual productions on the subject. It recovers a wealth of previously unseen archival footage, featuring the voices of disappeared workers, protagonists of emblematic struggles in the 1970s.

송곳 / Awl

Awl is a Korean social webtoon that explores labor rights and union organizing in a large retail company. The story follows ordinary workers who face unfair dismissals, intimidation, and anti-union tactics by management.

Zhanaozen Diary

The movie depicts the events that followed the bloody suppression of the strike. In 2011, I was an observer for the Kazakhstan Bureau for Human Rights and lived with the oil workers in the central square of Zhanaozen, and later attended the trials," says Galym Ageleuov.

Walesa: Man of Hope

The biopic film addresses the development of the trade union movement in Poland during the years 1970-1989, focusing on the participation of electrician Lech Wałęsa in demonstrations and strikes, leading to the creation of the trade union Solidarity and his speech in the U.S. Congress.

For Marks

The movie portrays events from a time of crisis, where the factory owners solved their problems at the expense of workers who have become impoverished in recent years. The core conflict in the film is between the newly emerged capitalists and Soviet-era working class.The factory workers, realizing that their salaries are being reduced, decide to form an…

Zhanaozen: an unknown tragedy