[The SAG-AFTRA strike comes at a time when polls suggest unions
are more popular in the U.S. than at any time since 1965, and the
labor movement is experiencing a resurgence of organizing. These 5
films reveal some of the history of this organizing.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

HOLLYWOOD ON THE PICKET LINE – 5 UNSUNG FILMS THAT PUT AMERICA’S
UNION HISTORY ON THE SILVER SCREEN  
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Peter Drier
July 14, 2023
The Conversation
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_ The SAG-AFTRA strike comes at a time when polls suggest unions are
more popular in the U.S. than at any time since 1965, and the labor
movement is experiencing a resurgence of organizing. These 5 films
reveal some of the history of this organizing. _

In an iconic scene from ‘Modern Times,’ Charlie Chaplin gets
caught in the gears of factory machinery. , Still from Modern Times

 

SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 150,000 screen and stage actors,
announced on July 13, 2023, that its members would go on strike
[[link removed]]. In so doing,
they join members of the Writers Guild of America who have been on
strike for several weeks.

Battles between Hollywood unions and the studios have taken place
since the 1940s
[[link removed]].
But this is the first time since the Eisenhower administration that
the two major Hollywood unions have been on strike at the same time.
The action – sparked by a long-running dispute over pay and greater
protection against use of artificial intelligence and the rise of
streaming services like Netflix – has shut down productions and
become increasingly acrimonious. One Hollywood source told a reporter
[[link removed]] that
the studios want these strikes to “drag on until union members start
losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

The strikes come at a time when polls suggest unions are more popular
in the U.S. than at any time since 1965
[[link removed]],
and the labor movement is experiencing a resurgence of organizing.

Since the mid-1900s, Hollywood studios have depicted the collective
efforts of working people to improve their lives and gain a voice in
their workplaces and the larger society with both sympathy and
hostility. Independent producers, who gained a foothold starting in
the 1970s, have generally been friendlier toward workers and their
unions.

Some of the most well-known labor movies champion the struggle of the
everyday worker: “Modern Times
[[link removed]],” released in 1936, stars
Charlie Chaplin going crazy due to his job on an assembly line. It
features the famous image of Chaplin caught in the gears of factory
machinery. “The Grapes of Wrath
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adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, tells the story of
sharecropper Tom Joad’s radicalization after his family and other
migrant workers experience destitute conditions in California’s
growing fields and overcrowded migrant camps.

1979’s “Norma Rae
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on the life of Crystal Lee Sutton
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J.P. Stevens mill in North Carolina. The textile worker and single mom
inspires her fellow workers to overcome their racial animus and work
together to vote in a union. “Bread and Roses
[[link removed]],” a 2000
film about low-wage janitors in Los Angeles, is based on the Service
Employees International Union’s Justice for Janitors
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In an iconic scene from ‘Modern Times,’ Charlie Chaplin gets
caught in the gears of factory machinery.

There’s also an anti-labor strain of Hollywood history, particularly
during the post-World War II Red Scare
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when studios purged left-wing writers, directors and actors
through an industrywide blacklist
[[link removed]].
Red Scare-era releases such as 1952’s “Big Jim McLain” and the
1954 film “On the Waterfront” often depicted unions as corrupt or
infiltrated by communist subversives.

When I teach labor history, I’ve used films to supplement books and
articles. I’ve found that students more easily grasp the human
dimensions of workers’ lives and struggles when they are depicted on
the screen.

Here are five unsung labor movies, all based on real-life events,
that, in my view, deserve more attention.

1. ‘Northern Lights
[[link removed]]’ (1978)

This is a fictionalized account of a fascinating but little-known
political movement: the Non-Partisan League
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farmers in the upper Midwest in the early 1900s.

During this period, Midwestern farmers worked long hours to harvest
grain that they were then forced to sell for low prices to elevators,
while paying high prices to the big railroad companies and banks.
Economic insecurity was a part of life, and foreclosures were routine.

The film follows Ray Sorenson, a young farmer influenced by socialist
ideas who leaves his North Dakota farm to become a Non-Partisan League
organizer. In his beat-up Model T, he travels the back roads, talking
to farmers in their fields or around the potbellied stoves of country
stores. He eventually persuades skeptical farmers that electing NPL
candidates could get the government to create cooperative grain
elevators, state-chartered banks with farmers as stockholders, and
limits on the prices that railroads can charge farmers to haul their
wheat.

‘Northern Lights’ is based on an early-20th-century farmer-led
political uprising in the Midwest.

In 1916, the Non-Partisan League did, in fact, elect farmer Lynn
Frazier
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governor of North Dakota with 79% of the vote. Two years later, the
NPL won control of both houses of the state legislature and created
the North Dakota Mill, still the only state-owned flour mill, and
the The Bank of North Dakota
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nation’s only government-owned general-service bank.

2. ‘The Devil and Miss Jones
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In this screwball comedy with a pro-union twist, Charles Coburn plays
John P. Merrick, a fictional New York City department store owner.

After his employees hang him in effigy, the tycoon goes undercover to
ferret out the agitators of a union drive led by a store clerk in the
shoe department and a union organizer.

As he learns more about their lives, Merrick grows sympathetic to his
workers – and even falls in love with one of his employees – none
of whom know his true identity. As the workers prepare to go on
strike, and even picket his house, Merrick reveals that he owns the
store and agrees to their demands over pay and hours – and even
marries the employee he’s fallen for.

The film was likely inspired by the 1937 sit-down strikes
[[link removed]] by
employees of New York City’s department stores.

3. 'Salt of the Earth’ (1954)

Decades ahead of its time, this story of New Mexico mine workers deals
with issues of racism, sexism and class.

After a mine accident, the Mexican-American workers decide to strike.
They demand better safety standards and equal treatment, since white
miners are allowed to work in pairs, while Mexican ones are forced to
work alone. The strikers expect the women to stay at home, cook and
take care of the children. But when the company gets an injunction to
end the men’s protest, the women step up and maintain the picket
lines, earning greater respect from the men.

Made at the height of the Red Scare, the film’s writer, producer and
director had been blacklisted
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leftist sympathies, so the film was sponsored by the International
Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, not a Hollywood studio.

Will Geer [[link removed]], a
blacklisted actor who later portrayed Grandpa Walton on the TV drama
“The Waltons,” played the repressive sheriff. Mexican actress
Rosaura Revueltas played the leader of the wives. The other characters
were portrayed by real miners and their wives who participated in the
strike against the Empire Zinc Company
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served as the inspiration for the film.

The film itself was blacklisted, and no major theater chain would show
it, but has since become a cult favorite among union activists and on
college campuses.

4. ‘10,000 Black Men Named George
[[link removed]]’ (2002)

Being a porter on a Pullman railroad car
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one of the few jobs open to Black men. But wages were low, travel was
constant and trains’ white passengers patronized the porters by
calling all of them “George,” after George Pullman
[[link removed]], the mogul who owned
the company.

The company hired thugs to intimidate the porters, but Randolph and
his top lieutenants persisted. They began their crusade in 1925 but
didn’t get the company to sign a contract with the union until
1937, thanks to a New Deal law
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gave railroad workers the right to unionize. Randolph became
American’s leading civil rights organizer during the 1940s and 1950s
and orchestrated the 1963 March on Washington.

5. 'North Country’ (2005)

Charlize Theron portrays Josey Aimes, a desperate single mom who flees
her abusive husband, returns to her hometown in northern Minnesota,
moves in with her parents and takes a job at an iron mine.

There, she is constantly groped, insulted and bullied by the male
workers. She complains to the company managers, who don’t take her
seriously. The male-dominated union claims there’s nothing they can
do. Aimes sues the company, which, after a dramatic courtroom scene,
is forced to settle with her and other women.

With stellar performances by Theron, Sissy Spacek, Frances McDormand
and Woody Harrelson, “North Country” is based on a groundbreaking
lawsuit
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by female miners at Minnesota’s Eveleth Mines in 1975 that helped
make sexual harassment a violation of workers’ rights.

_Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article that was
first published
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The Conversation on Aug. 22, 2022._

* Film
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* Hollywood Strike
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* films on the labor movement
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* Northern Lights
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* Modern Times
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* North Country
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* 10
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* 000 Black Men Named George
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* The Devil and Miss Jones
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* Labor Movement
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* workers rights
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* Salt of the Earth
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