How was it possible that a single man influenced contemporary world so significantly? This film is an attempt to capture the phenomenon of a common man’s metamorphosis into a charismatic leader — an attempt to see how a Gdansk shipyard electrician fighting for workers’ rights awakened a hidden desire for freedom in millions of people.
In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
America! Built on a better pill. Karly Hert has spent the last ten years selling drugs. Legally, that is. Karly is a pharmaceutical sales representative. She sells pills to doctors. She makes lots of money. She has a company car. She has a nice fat expense account. But there's a growing pit in Karly's stomach. Something isn't right behind the scenes at big pharma. Based on the director's decade working directly for the industry.
Social drama realistically traces the trials and travails in the life of sincere men from impoverished backgrounds, who find themselves unable to get employment due to the stranglehold of powerful trade unions in Kerala.
There are 200 miserably impoverished people working in the Dongseong Metalworks Factory. Ju Wan-ik is introduced to the forging team as a new member of the team and they all go drinking together to welcome him.
A power-mad union boss resorts to murder to eliminate witnesses scheduled to testify against him. The eclectic cast includes Mickey Rooney, Mamie Van Doren, Mel Torme, Jay North, Vampira, Charles Chaplin Jr., Jackie Coogan and Norman Grabowski.
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.
At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.
Megan Carter is a reporter duped into running an untrue story on Michael Gallagher, a suspected racketeer. He has an alibi for the time his crime was allegedly committed—but it involves an innocent party. When he tells Carter the truth and the newspaper runs it, tragedy follows, forcing Carter to face up to the responsibilities of her job when she is confronted by Gallagher.
A soulful coming of age story set in 1975 New York City about a young man who is forced to work under a former marine, leading them both through one summer they will never forget. Sometimes the unlikeliest of mentors become our greatest teachers.
A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam.
Vitoria, Basque Country, Spain, March 3, 1976. After several months of protests demanding decent working conditions, a general strike is called. Thousands of workers gather at the church of San Francisco while a hundred heavily armed policemen wait to act.
Dramatization of the true story of the so-called Willmar Eight, a group of Minnesota bank workers who braved freezing conditions whilst picketing their branch in a struggle for union rights.
As a family of siblings and their spouses gathers at their father's deathbed, old jealousies and new angers and liaisons lead to an inevitable climax.
A gripping story of love, deceit, betrayal and survival set against the backdrop of the Miners' Strike of 1984-85. Michelle is married to Gary, a young miner who goes on strike as soon as the dispute between the Thatcher government and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) begins. Meanwhile, her sister Linda's husband Paul is a local policeman. Paul becomes more and more voluble in his opposition to the strike, while Linda looks around her and witnesses the women of her community suddenly find a voice and independence. The scene is set for political and personal conflicts which would change their lives forever.
This patriotic short film promotes America's war effort at home. The story looks at a fictional small town's main street, seeing where additional workforce, for increased production of materials needed by the military, might come from.
Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
A Russian emigrant sings in a Shanghai nightclub under the assumed name of Kay Murphy. All she dreams of is a peaceful life with her daughter Vera. But this is only a pipe dream as she has been forced by her former lover Ivan to work for a secret criminal organization, "The Black Dragon". Vera, who studies in a Hong Kong boarding-school, knows nothing about her mother's past. When Ivan, who is also Vera's father, resurfaces and blackmails Kay, the young woman is determined to fight back...
The workers in a small plough factory take over the firm, but when a large order falls through, the old management come back to help out.
A historical drama set in 1889, Chandler's Mill examines the plight of workers, and particularly child workers, in the New Brunswick wool industry. The story revolves around the efforts of one young teenage girl to better the lives of her friend and other workers, on the eve of a public hearing of the Canadian Royal Commission on Capital and Labour. Through the use of historical re-enactment, Chandler's Mill explores the issues of child labour, worker's rights and union organizing in 19th-century Canada.