Eugene Debs and the American Movement

When We Fight

In the second largest school district in the United States, 98% of teachers vote to authorize a strike. Watch as one of the largest educator strikes in modern U.S. history unfolds in real-time, highlighting the stories and leadership of some of the women who led it, from union leaders to classroom teachers. From strike vote to contract vote, When We Fight goes behind the picket lines, documenting how and why teachers strike. "This powerful and beautifully crafted film is a must watch for anyone interested in the state of labor in America today." - Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Yamamoto Senji Watanabe Masanosuke Worker-Farmer Funeral

After his Tokyo farewell ceremony, Yamamoto's ashes were sent to Kyoto on March 9. Many friends and citizens gathered at his home in Uji. On the 15th a worker-farmer funeral was held at the Sanjo YMCA. Prokino's Kyoto Branch shot these five days of activities. The long line of cars is filled with taxis, whose drivers deeply admired Yamamoto. The Watanabe in the title refers to the head of the Communist Party of Japan. Watanabe was returning to Japan from Taiwan when he was stopped by authorities. He committed suicide in their custody. Yamamoto and Watanabe were mourned together.

Earth

A main agenda of the prewar farmer's movement was struggle against landowners. Prokino also considered this as their prime concern. The main title sequence and the latter part of the film have unfortunately been lost. While we cannot see its entire structure, we can still get a glimpse of it from this surviving short.

The Flickering Flame

Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.

The 12th Tokyo May Day

On May 1st, unions all over Japan celebrate May Day, the international day for workers. Workers gather together at parks and hold demonstrations and parades. May Day has its origins in a strike that occurred in the United States on May 1, 1886, a strike that called for an eight-hour workday. Prokino recorded the May Day every year from 1927 to 1932. Among these films, this work is the only one that has survived. However, only its first part has survived. The original film depicts the march to the Ueno Park where the rally was dismissed. Iwasaki Akira coordinated the entire Tokyo Prokino organization as it photographed the 1931 May Day celebrations. They shot in both 16mm and 35mm (other 35mm productions were planned, but this is the only one that achieved completion). A 16mm print was circulated around the countryside by mobile projection units, and a 35mm print was shown at Soviet film nights in Tokyo and Osaka.

The Farmer-Labor Movement: A Minnesota Story

Documentary about the history of the progressive Farmer-Labor movement in Minnesota from 1915 to 1944, when the party merged with the Democrats to form the DFL, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

Harlan County U.S.A.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

Haya

Brothers on the Line

Brothers on the Line explores the extraordinary journey of the Reuther brothers – Walter, Roy, and Victor – union organizers whose unshakeable devotion led an army of workers into an epic human rights struggle.

American Dream

When workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota are asked to take a substantial pay cut in a highly profitable year, the local labor union decides to go on strike and fight for a wage they believe is fair. But as the work stoppage drags on and the strikers face losing everything, friends become enemies, families are divided and the very future of this typical mid American town is threatened.

Cocalero

A documentary centered on the union formed by Bolivian farmers in response to their government's (which was urged by the U.S.) effort to eradicate coca crops, and the man who would come to represent them, Evo Morales.

Thatcher vs The Miners: The Battle for Britain

On the 5th of March 1985, a crowd gathered in a South Yorkshire pit village to watch a sight none of them had seen in a year. The villagers, many of them in tears, cheered and clapped as the men of Grimethorpe Colliery marched back to work accompanied by the village’s world-famous brass band. The miners and their families had endured months of hardship. It had all been for nothing. The miners had lost the strike called on March 6th 1984. They would lose a lot more in the years to come. But was it a good thing for the country that the miners lost their last battle?

Plutocracy III: Class War

The early struggles of the working class are placed under a microscope in Plutocracy III: Class War, the latest chapter in an exceptionally well produced series which explores the origins of America's growing economic divide.

The Miners' Strike and Me

Documentary marking the 30th anniversary of the 1984 miners' strike, one of the bitterest industrial disputes in British history, with stories from both sides of the conflict.

Union

Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, New York.

Baristas vs Billionaires

Starbucks baristas in Buffalo unite against corporate exploitation, sparking a generational uprising among working-class Millennials and Gen Z as they challenge a powerful billionaire CEO and fight for their rights.

Miners Shot Down

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

Contract

Documentary about the nurses' strike in Finland on autumn 2007.

Justice in the Coalfields

This film demonstrates how labor law has crippled the collective bargaining power of unions and weighed the scales of justice against working people. The documentary follows the 1988 United Mine Workers strike against the Pittston Coal Company that followed the expiration of their contract and Pittston's termination of the medical benefits of 1,500 pensioners, widows, and disabled miners.