Union
★ 7.7 · 2024 · 102m · Documentary
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.
More Like This
Earth
1931
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.
More info →
The Flickering Flame
1996 · ★ 6.3
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.
More info →The Farmer-Labor Movement: A Minnesota Story
2022
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.
More info →
When We Fight
2023
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
More info →
The 12th Tokyo May Day
1931
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.
More info →
Fish or Cut Bait
1993
In the 1970's, filmmakers Tom Burger, Bill McKiggan and Chuck Lapp began documenting the history and current struggles of inshore fishermen in Atlantic Canada to form a union. Until 1979 it was illegal for fishermen to form a union in Nova Scotia. The committed funding from the National Film Board was withdrawn for this film, however the filmmakers continued to edit the film by entering the NFB at night. The CBC refused to broadcast the film, but it was finally released in 1990 and broadcast nationally that year on Vision TV.
More info →
Ms Rhymney Valley
1985
Portrait of a community in the heart of South Wales almost one year into the miners' strike of the 1980s.
More info →
Baristas vs Billionaires
2025
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.
More info →
Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe
2019 · ★ 7
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.
More info →
Miners Shot Down
2014 · ★ 9
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.
More info →
Harlan County U.S.A.
1977 · ★ 7.5
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.
More info →
Feedback
2023
A documentary about teachers' strikes in Iceland in the latter half of the 20th century with a special focus on 1995.
More info →