Six widows demand compensation for the death of their husbands, who were killed during a worker's strike. The women are arrested and taken to the police quarters, where the authorities try to make them retract their statements, but it turns out they're not so easily intimidated.
Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.
An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.
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.
When a group of young filmmakers witness and film a crime of passion, the most outrageous blackmail of the century begins. By means of a fantastic plan, the filmmakers send to the murderer, a financial and industrial big shot, a copy of the movie that incriminates him and they demand him an improvement of the standard of living for the working class.
In a company trading maté, workers are treated as slaves. Some of them try to escape, but those who are caught suffer severe punishments.
25-year-old philosophy major Marta faces the ugly truth for many young Italians — a complete lack of career opportunities. While babysitting for single mother Sonia, she starts to work as a telemarketer, experiencing first-hand the fanatical and exploitative rat-race culture pushed on employees while quickly rising through the ranks of the company. Around her revolve people like delusional supervisor Daniela, her womanizing boss Claudio, fragile coworker Lucio "2", and well-meaning but inconsistent union rep Giorgio.
Workers in a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia go on strike and are met by violent suppression.
In the 1920s, female workers in a factory paint fluorescent watch dials. Mollie, the newcomer, makes a mistake that forces her colleagues to work with her through the night. Deprived of the evening ball they were supposed to attend, they end up improvising their own ball in the factory…
The Harbour shows how two brothers end up on opposing sides of this system. One becomes the leader of an employer’s gang of thugs, while the other becomes an activist. All the while, the women in their family go hungry and the community is ravaged by violence and alcoholism.
During 2004 alone, 1400 people in Italy died at their workplace, 3.87 per day. Andrea is one of them.
The sawmill in a northern Swedish village close down. Nils becomes unemployed. In order to cope with needs of his family, he is forced to travel south. His wife Karin and the children will stay in the village until further notice. Nils starts working at a factory. In addition to the job, he has been promised a good residence so that the family can move to him.
Portugal, 1944. In a country oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, there are those who resist and mobilize the people to fight for bread and freedom, even if it cost them prison, torture or their lives.
A French-to-Spanish interpreter working for a food processing plant that hires seasonal workers from Guatemala is, at first determined to obey the sometimes excessive directives of the young boss, but she befriends the workers and tries to defend them against the exploitation they suffer.
A complex web of emotions which unfolds the grounding difference between love & predilection. An underlying, but prominent current of class difference between Indrajit & Zoya, brings clarity to the waters that they're in.
One hundred years after the assassination of German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), we look back at the struggles of this pioneer of the Workers' International.
For decades, migrant workers have worked the fields of Immokalee, harvesting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, oranges and other produce that is then shipped across the United States of America. Many of the workers are undocumented, and attempting to keep their jobs even as federal migration crackdowns hover over the town. The Fields of Immokalee film follows the daily lives of tomato workers, from the 5:00am trips to the parking lot in hopes of finding day labor, to work sessions in the scorching mid-day heat, to child detention centers for migrant youth that have been separated from their families. Via these vignettes, the film offers insight into the most volatile political issue of our time.
When Umi and Dwipa left Indonesia to work in an Ontario greenhouse as part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program, they hoped the jobs would provide the opportunity and income for a better life. They didn't expect that fixers and false promises would lead to deception and exploitation. Sadly, their story is not uncommon. Min Sook Lee continues to speak truth to power with her commitment to providing a voice to the silenced, fulfilling documentary's capacity as a powerful tool for social change.
Apple Gatherers follows two workers in an apple cider factory, the Peeler and the Shoveller. The film explores the loneliness and dissatisfaction of their labour-intensive world and the brief reprieve they find in moments of real human connection.
Documentary about the Radium Dial Company and the aftereffects experienced by its workers from repeated exposure to radioactive paint.