1. Triangle: Remembering the Fire
On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers - mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls - were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths to escape an inferno that consumed the factory in just 18 minutes. It was the worst disaster at a workplace in New York State until 9/11. The tragedy changed the course of history, paving the way for government to represent working people, not just business, for the first time, and helped an emerging American middle class to live the American Dream.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
2. The Fields of Immokalee
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.
3. I Am a Sex Worker
Two foreigners meet in Barcelona and become friends after discovering that they both work in the same business: sex work. Their conversations offer an insider’s view into the differences between women and men in the sex industry.
It has an average vote of 1 on TMDB.
4. Un homme de Parole (Un homme de Parole)
(Un homme de Parole)
5. Love, Women & Flowers (Amor, mujeres y flores)
Women workers stand up to the toxic flower industry in Colombia.
6. Poor-Land (Bieda-Ziemia)
A documentary about unemployed workers in Walbrzych, Poland.
7. Migrant Dreams
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.
8. Conversations with Turiansky (Conversaciones con Turiansky)
Biographical portrait of the labor movement and left wing movement in Uruguay, "Conversations with Turiansky" combines two stories. The first portrays the son of immigrants, the engineer passionate about the mystery of electricity, the man in love, the movie buff. The other places the protagonist in his time: union struggles, the advance of authoritarianism, prison and the challenges of the present. In both are present the lucidity, commitment, discreet tenderness and humor of Wladimir Turiansky.
9. The Devil’s Fire
THE DEVIL'S FIRE is an original documentary from WSKG Public Television and filmmaker Brian Frey. Utilizing never-before-seen photographs and investigative archival material, the film tells the story behind the Binghamton Clothing Company's charismatic owner, Reed B. Freeman, and the young immigrant workers trapped in the deadly blaze that hot Tuesday in July of 1913.
10. Radium City
Documentary about the Radium Dial Company and the aftereffects experienced by its workers from repeated exposure to radioactive paint.
It has an average vote of 5.5 on TMDB.
11. Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik (Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik)
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.
12. The Harvest (The Harvest)
Gurwinder comes from Punjab, he’s been working for years as a farm hand in Agro Pontino, not far from Rome. Since he first came in Italy, he’s been living with the rest of the Sikh community in Latina province. Hardeep is also Indian, but her stress is Roman, and she works as a cultural mediator. She, born and raised in Italy, is trying to free herself from the memories of a family that emigrated in another age, while he is forced, against his faith, to take methamphetamine and doping to bear the heavy work pace, to be able to send money in India.
13. Farewell Ferris Wheel
Farewell Ferris Wheel explores how the U.S. Carnival industry fights to keep itself alive by legally employing Mexican migrant workers with the controversial H-2B guestworker visa.
It has an average vote of 7.3 on TMDB.
14. "They Didn't Starve Us Out": Industrial Cape Breton in the 1920s
For 200 years, coal mining had been a way of life in Cape Breton. By 1920 things were looking up: miners were unionized and paid decent wages. Then the British Empire Steel Corporation arrived and bought every single steel and coal company in Nova Scotia. BESCO cut wages by a third, setting off a bitter labour dispute. The miners settled in for a long strike. Finally, in 1925, the military ended the unrest with brute force. But the miners, in one sense, had won. They broke up the monopoly and provided an example to workers across the country.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
15. Becoming Ourselves: How Immigrant Women Transformed Their World
A social justice organization based in Oakland-Asian Immigrant Women Advocates-focused on building the collective leadership of limited-English speaking immigrants, and empowered women and youth to become powerful agents of social change.
16. La Brigada – A Mural for the Unidad Popular in Dresden (Brigada - Ein Beitrag zur Solidarität anläßlich der 16. Arbeiterfestspiele 1976 in Dresden)
During the 16th Workers' Festival in Dresden in 1976, a student group of Chilean emigrants paints a mural symbolically depicting the activity of the Unidad Popular during Salvador Allende's reign. Festival guests comment on this work. Music by Chilean music group Jaspampa, formed in Leipzig in 1972.
17. Struggle
This powerful documentary explores the cruel realities of sweatshop labor and workplace injury in China, and one lawyer's mission to defend worker's rights.
18. Tragic Jungle (Selva Trágica)
In a company trading maté, workers are treated as slaves. Some of them try to escape, but those who are caught suffer severe punishments.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
19. Matewan
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.
It has an average vote of 7.258 on TMDB.
20. A Whole Life Ahead (Tutta la vita davanti)
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, quickly rising through the ranks of the company, but experiencing first-hand the fanatical and exploitative rat-race culture pushed on employees. Around her revolve people like delusional supervisor Daniela, her boss Claudio, fragile coworker Lucio, and well-meaning but inconsistent union rep Giorgio.
It has an average vote of 6.596 on TMDB.
