In a time when Starbucks and Amazon workers are trying to unionize, as are reporters and journalists at newspapers and online media companies, this is an excellent time to watch films about unions and their most effective tactic – strikes.
Which movies would you recommend that someone watch during a strike? People on an established Internet forum were asked this question. As you might expect, they responded with some great answers.
1. Strike (1925)
Not the first film about labor unions, but made by one of the greatest filmmakers in history, Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein, Strike qualifies for this list. Eisenstein is legendary for his second film, The Battleship Potemkin, with its impressive Odessa Steps sequence, which shows the brutal repression of the Tsar of Russia. The sequence is still taught in film schools today, and director Brian De Palma created a train station scene as a homage to the sequence in his film The Untouchables.
Strike or Stachka is a silent drama about workers refusing to work after one of the employees is unfairly accused of theft. Agents of the bosses spy on workers, and eventually, the governor sends in the military, who attack the employees. The film shows scenes of workers demanding rights like wage increases, an eight-hour workday, fair treatment, and six-hour workdays for minors. It is Eisenstein’s feature debut.
2. Hunger (2008)
Hunger is about a different kind of strike. In this case, it is a hunger strike undertaken by Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoner willing to starve himself to make his point. The prisoners in the facility continually protest the unfair treatment of the British government during The Troubles, and the guards mistreat them horribly. The film is another feature debut, this time by British director Steve McQueen, with no relation to actor Steve McQueen.
The film stars Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, The IRA’s former officer commanding. The film takes place in 1981 during the second hunger strike in Northern Ireland after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rescinded their rights as political prisoners. Sands perished after sixty-six days and was elected to Parliament while in prison. Riots broke out at the news of his passing, and one hundred thousand people attended his funeral.
3. The Wobblies (1979)
The Wobblies is a riveting documentary about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) formation in 1905. Co-directed by Deborah Shaffer and Stewart Bird shows the Wobblies’ insistence on “one big union” to protect workers’ rights, rank-and-file organization, and their success in organizing “unskilled workers.”
The film tells the real-life story of the union rebels that is still very relevant today. The film interviews union members, now in their 80s and 90s, and uses archival footage, art, and songs, written by Joe Hill or Hägglund, a dedicated union activist railroaded into being executed in 1915. Hill’s songs are in the Little Red Song Book of the IWW.
4. Matewan (1987)
Matewan was written and directed by John Sayles about the Battle of Matewan or a coal miners’ strike culminating in a gunfight between the townspeople and the mine owner’s mercenaries in 1920. It stars Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, David Straithern, Mary McDonnell, and Will Oldham. Cooper plays Joe Kenehan, a union organizer from United Mine Workers who comes to town and becomes embroiled in the conflict.
The mine owner tries to crush the spirit of the coal miners by bringing in scab workers, evicting them from company housing, and confiscating food and clothing they bought with company script or currency that owners gave to their workers instead of U.S. dollars to control them better. There is also a spy in their midst sent by the company to inform on union workers and sow discord. It did not do well upon release but was a critical hit and is remembered for its powerful storytelling.
5. Silkwood (1983)
Silkwood is the story of a union organizer and whistleblower, Karen Silkwood. She died in a suspicious car accident after leaving a union meeting and testifying before the Atomic Energy Commission about the safety issues at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site where she worked.
The film stars Meryl Streep as Silkwood, Kurt Russell as her boyfriend, and Cher as her roommate, who are both her co-workers. Silkwood and the other workers are contaminated with radiation, and she becomes obsessed with finding proof to expose the plant bosses. When she is on her way to meet a New York Times reporter with her evidence, she is involved in a fatal accident. No evidence was found in her car. It was written by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen and directed by Mike Nichols.
6. Bread and Roses (2000)
Bread And Roses is a film that tells the story of the Justice For Janitors movement that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ran starting in June 1990 to improve the wages and conditions for janitors, caretakers, and cleaners in offices and other buildings. These workers are traditionally underpaid and need access to advantages like health insurance while doing hard work that nobody else wants to do. The film shows their efforts to form a union and seek justice.
The film is directed by Ken Loach, a socialist director who concentrates on the lives of working people and social issues. It stars Pilar Padilla, Adrien Brody and Elpidia Carrillo. Loach is a director who has won the most awards given to a director at the Cannes Films Festival. Some of those awards were for joint prizes, but he is the only one who has ever won fifteen times at the festival.
7. Norma Rae (1979)
Norma Rae is a film about the life of Crystal Lee Sutton, a real-life union organizer, renamed Norma Rae for the film. It was directed by Marvin Ritt and stars Sally Field, Beau Bridges, and Ron Liebman and released in 1979 after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.
She works at a cotton mill that is dangerous to the health of its workers with its terrible working conditions. After taking the job of a spot checker and regretting it, she listens to a union organizer’s speech and is fired up to bring the union to her workplace. She is caught trying to transcribe a racist company flier and is fired. She then stands silently on top of a table with a piece of cardboard that says, “Union,” in an iconic moment.
8. Cesar Chavez (2014)
Cesar Chavez is a biographical film about the celebrated labor leader who created the United Farm Workers (UFW) with Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong, two other labor leaders, in 1962. Conditions for farm workers and treatment from farmers and other Californians were often brutal and racist.
Mexican actor and director Diego Luna directed the film and stars Michael Peña America Ferrara, Rosario Dawson, Darion Basco, and John Malkovich. The film tells the story of the many non-violent protests and strikes led by Chavez, Huerta, and Larry Itliong, a Filipino labor leader.
9. Blue Collar (1978)
Blue Collar is a celebrated film directed by Paul Schrader and co-written with his brother Leonard. It tells the story of three angry auto workers at the auto factory bosses and their union representatives. The film is one of the few that is critical of unions and stresses the workers’ struggles against all sides that have the power. It stars Yaphet Kotto, Richard Pryor, and Harvey Keitel, who give blistering performances that sprang out of real-life enmity.
10. The Molly Maguires (1970)
The Molly Maguires is based on the book Lament for the Molly Maguires by Arthur H. Lewis and is set in Pennsylvania in 1876. The Molly Maguires were a secret society among Irish coal miners in the U.K. and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. They existed to protect coal miners from the oppression of coal mine owners and the dangers of the job before regulations.
While there isn’t a traditional union in this film, the secret society serves the purpose of a union by fighting for workers’ safety and rights by any means they deem necessary. Their antagonist is even the one that coal mine owners sent against the unions in later years, agents of The Pinkertons. The film is the second film on this list, directed by Martin Ritt, and stars Richard Harris, Sean Connery, Samantha Eggar, and Frank Finlay.
11. Salt of The Earth (1954)
Based on true events, Salt of the Earth exposes the ugly truth about Mexican-Americans working at a mine in New Mexico during the 1950s. In this coming of age film, people protest inequality around pay and working conditions.
The film was directed by Herbert J. Biberman and starred Juan Chacón, Rosaura Revueltas, and Will Geer.
12. Office Space (1999)
Although this movie isn’t about unions or strikes, it does bring a lot of humor into how ridiculous the work environment can be. So, if you find yourself in a strange situation with work these days, find a place to stream Office Space and leave your worries for another day.
Dolores Quintana is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles. She has bylines at Fangoria, Alternative Press, Nightmarish Conjurings, Grammy.com/The Recording Academy, The Advocate, Buddyhead, Pocho.com, The Theatre @ Boston Court, The Mirror Media Group, What Now Media, We Like LA, and The Shudder Blog. She has a successful YouTube channel and podcast called Burnt Orange Dreams, where she interviews actors, writers, and directors.
