Books and films

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.

La derrota

The workers of a company go on strike and are massacred. A journalist tries to defend them and is also killed.

The People vs. Willie Farah

Latina workers on strike at El Paso’s Farah Manufacturing Company discuss their working conditions & their fight for a union.

Los traidores

It tells the story of the beginnings, rise, and fall of a union bureaucrat’s life. From his early days of struggle in the Peronist resistance in the late 1950s, to his transformation into a corrupt leader bought off by the bosses, a traitor to the workers’ interests, who persecutes class-struggle and leftist militants during the turbulent days of the 1970s.

Los puños frente al cañón / Fists Against the Cannon

Feature-length documentary about the history of the Chilean labor movement, narrated through interviews with its protagonists, photographic material, archival footage, and reenactments of events such as the San Gregorio massacre and the executions that were commonly carried out in response to social movements in the 1920s.

Blow for Blow / Coup pour coup

In France, in Elbeuf , a wildcat strike begins in a small textile company employing almost exclusively women. Labor conflict breaks out due to hard labor, sexual harassment, and mistreatment by the management.

All's Well

The workers of a sausage factory in the town of Tuvabya, under Maoist slogans, occupied the factory, declared an indefinite strike, and captured the commercial director and his American wife. The poor couple now even go to the toilet according to the mocking time standards set by the administration for workers.

Handsome Face / Beau Masque

Piaret works at a spinning factory in the eastern department of France. She is a single mother, dedicating all her energy to the union and the fight for workers' rights.

Dear Mother, I'm Fine / Liebe Mutter, mir geht es gut

In 1967, the Ruhr area's mining industry in West Germany faced an economic crisis. The labor exchange sends the unemployed mechanic Alfred Schefchuk as a day laborer to West Berlin, where he has to work hard to earn his daily bread.

Die Wollands

This film was a standout in German "proletarian cinema." The Volland family lives in West Berlin and has managed to build a stable life: Horst, the husband, works as a welder in a factory, his wife has a job too, and their daughter lives with her grandparents. However, the modernization of the factory line stirs discontent among the workers.

Trade unionist / Il sindacalista

The passionate and ambitious Sicilian Saverio Ravizzi survives a deadly incident during a demonstration and moves to Bergamo. There, he gets a job at a home appliance factory and immediately begins rallying his colleagues for better working conditions, unaware that his activism is being skillfully manipulated by the factory owner for his own selfish…

Boxcar Bertha

The head of the railroad shamelessly exploits the workers in the 1930s. But union organizer Bill Shelley, along with the Brotherhood of Workers, fights back.

The Blue-Collar Trap

NBC documentary highlighting the dissatisfaction & restlessness of the younger generation of blue-collar workers.

The courage of the people

A documentary reenactment of the government-ordered massacre of striking tin miners and their families at the Siglo XX Mines in 1967 in Bolivia.

My Uncle Antoine

The film depicts life in the Maurice Duplessis-era Asbestos Region of rural Québec before the Asbestos Strike of 1949. Set at Christmas time, the story is told from the point of view of 15-year-old boy Benoît (Jacques Gagnon) who is coming of age in a mining town.

Crónica del salitre

A narrative of the history of the labor movement in the nitrate offices of northern Chile. The voices of workers are heard, accompanied by images of mining operations.

The Working Class Goes to Heaven

A grotesque pamphlet about a working-class guy, a simpleton, whose soul and body are contested between leftists and revolutionaries on one side and factory authorities longing for order on the other. The satire was so sharp, and the hero's portrayal as a worker so ridiculous and pitiable, that the film's director, Elio Petri, faced a storm of accusations…

Joe Hill

The film tells the tragic fate of Joel Emanuel Hägglund , famous worldwide as Joe Hill. Hill emigrated from Sweden with his brother and tried to make a life in the USA.

The Rank and File (Play for Today)

This Ken Loach film is dedicated to the two-month-long "wildcat strike" of 6,000 workers at the Pilkington glass company in Lancashire. The workers had not gone on strike for 100 years, their union did not support them, and they faced persecution.

Upper Clyde Shipbuilders

A campaign film supporting workers at Glasgow's Upper Clyde Shipyards who developed a new weapon to fight to retain their jobs: the occupation and the work-in. The film was screened at meetings attended by more than 25,000 workers.

Ramparts of Clay / Remparts d'argile

The workers of a small village in Tunisia, employed in a salt mine, go on strike to protest poverty wages and brutal working conditions. In response, troops are sent to deal with them.

La Califfa

Kaliffa's husband was killed during the strike, and afterward, Kaliffa takes the side of the strikers and enters into conflict with the factory owner, Doverdo.The conflict turns into a love story, with passion and tenderness gradually replacing the initial tensions. A hauntingly beautiful and bizarre film.

Sagina Mahato

The film is based on a real episode of the workers' struggle on tea plantations in the Himalayas, in Northeast India, during 1942-1943. The main character, Sagina, is an honest and combative yet politically inexperienced union leader, who organizes the workers' fight at a factory in Siliguri.

Metello

Metello Santini didn’t remember his father, but he followed in his footsteps, becoming a worker and a labor movement activist (the film mentions workers, the Chamber of Labor, and the mutual aid society). The plot of the film revolves around two main themes: Metello and the workers' question, and Metello and his women.

Finally Got the News

I Am Somebody

Sometimes a Great Notion

Set in the Oregon forests, by the banks of the great Wakonda-Augi River, life in the town of Wakonda resembles an ancient Greek tragedy that allows no mistakes. In the midst of the slush, autumn, the desperate logging race, and the doomed strike, the Stamper clan—stubborn drifters and loners—exists by its own rules.

Taylor Chain - I, II

The Molly Maguires

The film is set in Pennsylvania in 1876 and is based on real events. "Molly Maguires" is a secret society of Irish immigrants who fight against the mine owners.