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...
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.
Robert moves from the Polish countryside to work on a fish processing factory on the coast of Norway. There he falls in love with Ivar who is openly gay and a member of the workers union. Robert is hiding his sexual orientation from the other Polish immigrant workers. When Ivar helps the Polish to start a strike for better working conditions at the factory, Robert has to choose between money or love.
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.
In 1910, women working in the silk industry in Bursa, protest against the working conditions. They go on strike.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shimu, 23, works in a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Faced with difficult conditions at work, she decides to start a union with her co-workers. Despite threats from the management and disapproval of her husband, Shimu is determined to go on. Together the women must fight and find a way to register their union.
Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide.
A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.
Davey Fenwick leaves his mining village on a university scholarship intent on returning to better support the miners against the owners. But he falls in love with Jenny who gets him to marry her and return home as local schoolteacher before finishing his degree.
In response to a sudden dismissal of staff, workers at a big retail store begin a protest against their employer's oppressive labor policies.
Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul's engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.
The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.
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.
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.
After losing a finger in a work accident, an Italian worker becomes increasingly involved in political and revolutionary groups.
Circumstances force the union leader of a factory to marry his own boss, a rich and arrogant lady who has ulterior motives.