Power in numbers: what have 50 years of labor literature shown us? | | Documentary films

“WWe better get together or, by God, we’re going to be buried,” said a meatpacker at Barbara Kopple’s American Dream meeting in 1990. “They’re the Hormel Foods Corporation, who took advantage of the union crisis to replace a large portion of their workers during the 68 crisis in Austin, American Dream. Minnesota, as a symbol of the working class of the United States – call it another State of the Union address.

The American Dream is taking place in the years of Reagan, characterized by an unyielding approach to union power: in 1981, the president threatened the striking pilots with termination if they did not return to work in 48 hours; private companies such as Hormel, Phelps Dodge, and International Paper replaced the workers; and organizations lost 2.7 million members from 1980 to 1984.

The film, which has been restored and re-released this week by Janus Films, followed Kopple in Harlan County, USA, about the 1973 Brookside strike at the Kentucky coalmine. The film, which celebrates its 50th anniversary later this year, is a more powerful watch than the American Dream. In both works, Kopple uses a circular, cinema vérité camera to capture the characters in all their frustration and endurance, the extended, condensed time that keeps the workers united, as others tire of the rigidity of the union.

But the DNA of Harlan County, USA can also be found in the many contracts and damages that followed: Final Offer, about the 1984 contract negotiations with General Motors, and American Standoff, about the Teamsters’ strike against the Overnite Transportation company since 2000. Recently, Agreement followed the Amazon Labor Union’s historic attempt to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, while the upcoming Who Moves America is a national investigation of UPS drivers planning to strike as Teamster negotiators fight for a formal union.

Stories about the strike come hard-wired, jam-packed and really hard-hitting – with thick and riveting satire from their history of class struggle. Whether it’s animal handlers, miners, porters or warehouse workers, filmmakers gain the trust of workers who risk everything, and the following films examine the heat of organized labor in the United States.

Certain events in the union’s books are almost certain: tax preparers hand over files at meetings, workers express concern about how the strike will affect their families, arguments break out on the advertising line. There will be industry spokesmen, former Union-till-I-us, and scabs. But these developments have less to do with traditional myths and more to do with the more formal, rigorous strategic alliances and forecasting strategies companies are seeking. The consistency of content and style ensures that the basic problem of workers has remained constant from Harlan County, USA onwards, but any film that focuses on the base and the nature of its film means that a small group shows the change in American work.

For some, the history of the union’s events has shifted from shared memory to an irrelevant past. Miners in Harlan County, USA stand near the Harlan County War, a series of conflicts in the 1930s that killed more than a dozen people. “Bloody Harlan” is invoked throughout Kopple’s film, including when singer Florence Reece sings her protest song previously recorded in Harlan County. Early collaborations like this are at the forefront of past documentaries, such as With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade, The Wobblies, and This Week. American Agitatorswhich chronicles the life of architect Fred Ross, who began his career overseeing the Dust Bowl migrant camp that inspired John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

In Who Moves America, the UPS contract negotiations in 2023 are contrasted with the UPS history of 1997, shown through camcorder footage captured on the picket line. Many UPS drivers remember the strike, but young people don’t know what it means. Today’s companies employ many part-time, part-time workers who may not commit to organizing; instead of one company that plays a major role in the town’s economy, working for Amazon or UPS can be one of two or three jobs that one person does. Recent literature reports on the differences between those who die in a partnership and those who have to conclude that the partnership is the biggest threat to the partnership.

The American Dream has all the seeds of a manufacturing company that changed the narrative around the union. In Harlan County, USA, gunmen and representatives of the mining industry cast their gazes down around Kopple’s camera, which was clear and inconsistent with the lenses of the free press. By the mid-1980s, the regime was all smiles and ready for the cameras, shyly rejecting new anti-government campaigns. By the 2020s, any C-suite discussion of unions is focused on its limitations; in Who Moves America, UPS CEO Carol Tomé portrays shareholders by comparing Teamster negotiations to arguing with her husband about getting a puppy. In the Union, disrupting the union is the removal of PowerPoint consultants, such as those hired to harass Amazon employees in meeting rooms and encourage them to not organize. This is in stark contrast to the armed men guarding the mine in Harlan County, USA, who fought the rioters and eventually killed mine worker Lawrence Jones.

It is difficult to deny the importance of the politics of solidarity in documents full of real, emotional words, especially when modern films combine the ideas of migrant workers and the undocumented who receive the threat of scapegoating and demonization. But Hollywood is not the savior of unions. Despite organizations like Sag-Aftra, WGA and Iatse, corporate politics often remain. Even if it is praised on the festival circuit, The Union was forced to divide itself when buyers decided not to destroy the working relationship with Amazon MGM Studios. It didn’t exactly bury the film, but it made things more difficult, denying the publicity that was earned by the best Oscar entries, such as the one awarded to Kopple. But watching these 100-year-old films, showing the hard work and courage of the editors, you believe that the documentary is a continuous, collaborative work – capable of being both an archive and a book.