Books and films

Where Do You Stand? Stories from an American Mill

The long struggle of textile workers at Cannon Mills in Kannapolis, NC to unionize.

West of the Tracks

Wang Bing’s striking three-part documentary West of the Tracks (French title: À l’Ouest des rails) observes the gradual decay of Tie Xi, a vast industrial zone in Shenyang that had flourished during China’s socialist period. Filmed from 1999 to 2001, as the country underwent far-reaching economic transformations at the beginning of the twenty-first…

Eila

A cleaning lady, Aila, is focused on helping her son—she needs money, not trouble. That’s why she didn’t join her colleagues when they went on strike.

History of the Turkish Working Class and Trade Union Movement / Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Hareketi Tarihi

A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il

This is a biography of Chun Tae-il (1948–1970), an activist and a symbol of the South Korean labor movement, who sacrificed his life in the struggle for workers’ rights.

An Injury to One

An experimental documentary exploring the turn-of-century lynching of union organizer Frank Little in Butte, Montana.

The Wire (2 Season)

The Local 1514 of the International Brotherhood of Longshoremen (IBS) leadership, headed by Frank Sobotka, is in Baltimore, Maryland, selling stolen cargo from the port to the Greek mafia and trying to bribe officials to secure funding in the city budget for the expansion of the port terminals. Their lobbying campaign is on the verge of success.

La Huelga de los Locos / Crazy Strike

Documentary about the so-called "Crazy Strike", a strike carried out by members of the Federation of Workers in Naval Constructions-Autonomous (FOCN) between October 1956 and November 1957, the largest of the Argentine working class in the century XX.

Globalizacja a konflikty lokalne

Local communities in Poland experience the effects of globalization on a daily basis, but they also try to resist this process. The conflicts that erupt do not take as violent a course as the events on the streets of Seattle, Prague, or Genoa; nevertheless, they are a direct result of globalization processes, including the emergence of new technologies,…

Labour Relations in Turkey during the Multi-Party Period: 1946–1963 / Türkiye'de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalışma İlişkileri: 1946–1963

Los lunes al sol / Mondays in the Sun

Spanish film offers a raw and realistic portrait of a group of unemployed workers in a coastal city in Galicia. The story follows the lives of these men as they struggle to find work in a collapsing economy, exploring themes such as unemployment, labor alienation, and solidarity among comrades.

10,000 Black Men Named George

During the Depression, jobs were catastrophically scarce. The only job available to Black men was as porters for the Pullman Royal Company.

American Standoff

In this 95-minute drama, we follow the months-long strike of members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (the truck drivers' union) against the freight delivery company "Overnite Transportation." The situation is complicated by the fact that most of the company's workers are non-union, and within the union itself, there is a tense struggle…

Miss Fiat / Signorina Effe

Documentary about Maria Teresa Arisio, employed at Fiat in Turin for 33 years, from 1961 to 1994.

McDonald's: Smile on the Conveyor

The McDonald's Corporation is a global leader in the fast food industry. What is the secret to its success?

The Navigators

Paul, Mike, Len, and Jerry work as railroad repairmen in Yorkshire. Jerry, a union activist, aims to improve the everyday lives of the workers, but management isn’t welcoming.

Dr. Dolittle 2

The film stars Eddie Murphy in the title role. The Black doctor has a miraculous gift—he understands the language of animals.

Live Nude Girls Unite!

Documentary look at the 1996-97 effort of the dancers and support staff at a San Francisco peep show, The Lusty Lady, to unionize. Angered by arbitrary and race-based wage policies, customers' surreptitious video cameras, and no paid sick days or holidays, the dancers get help from the Service Employees International local and enter protracted bargaining…

FIAT, AUTUMN '80

Sounds of the workers' struggle at Fiat in the autumn of 1980, thirty-five days of hard mobilization to defend their jobs. "This is the first step of a more ambitious and broad project dedicated to the other history of Fiat, that of the workers who worked there, from the birth of the Turin industrial giant to today.

Billy Elliot

Set in County Durham in North East England during the 1984–1985 miners' strike, a father and his eldest son fight for the working class, while the youngest son has a passion for ballet and uses every opportunity to learn a new pas. Parallel to the great miners' battle, a dramatic fight occurs within the family — the elders see Billy's choice as an…

Bread and Roses

A young Mexican woman, Maya, arrives in the U.S. illegally.

Harlan County War

The story is based on real events in the mountain region of Kentucky. Ruby's husband works for a mining company in a small town and nearly dies in an underground accident.

The Replacements

The film is based on the well-known conflict between the players of the National Football League (NFL) and team owners in 1987. The players initiated a strike, even joining the cheerleading teams.

Cradle Will Rock;

Marc Blitzstein, a composer, finishes his work on a provocative musical called The Cradle Will Rock.The infamous director Orson Welles decides to direct it. However, the authorities, frightened by strikes and socialist sentiments in society, banned the musical from being staged in the Federal Theatre.

Prairie Fire: The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919

On May 15, 1919, the largest labour uprising in Canadian history saw 25,000 people, virtually every working man and woman in Canada's third largest city, walk off their jobs. Winnipeg was paralyzed.

Human Resources

The story centers around a young intern who is doing a placement in the management of a large company. The more successful his work becomes, the worse his relationships with those around him, his family, and former friends get.

From Harvard to the Ranks of Labor: Powers Hapgood and the American Working Class

During the first half of the twentieth century, many young intellectuals and reformers sympathized with the aspirations of working people and supported the struggles of the labor movement. Powers Hapgood (1899–1949) was one of the most colorful and recognizable symbols of this crucial historical relationship.

Portraits from the History of Türk-İş / Türk-İş Tarihinden Portreler

Humpback Bridge-98

In the summer of 1998, the miners arrived directly to the lawn in front of the White House in Moscow where Prime Minister S.V. Kiriyenko and his cabinet were meeting.

Defying the Law

On July 14, 1946, a group of steelworkers poured out of Hamilton's Playhouse Theatre and set up pickets around the country's largest steel mill. Their action sparked one of the most important strikes in our country's history--a strike which many consider to be the birth of the modern Canadian labour movement.