The following list contains a selection of films about labor unions and the average working man and woman. These films are mostly centered on the fight for rights in the workplace - better wages, benefits, safe working conditions, equal treatment - things that some of us, at least in developed countries, take for granted. In a country like the United States, many have suffered, lost jobs, time away from work, money, and in some cases their lives to gain the advantages we, as workers, enjoy today. Films criticizing big business, and particularly government’s complicity in maintaining status quo, have a tendency to upset those in power. This attitude certainly has a chilling effect on the number of pro-worker, pro-union films that have managed to have gotten produced, and seen. Even a low budget film like Salt of Earth (1954) by Henry Biberman was actually banned or blackballed because it spoke about simple human rights in the work force. Three of British filmmaker Ken Loach’s films appear on this list, but there could have been more. Loach is on the vanguard when it comes to making cinema about the working class. He has been faithfully doing so for some forty years. 

1. Salt of the Earth(1954) Directed by Henry Biberman. The production included a number of people who had been persecuted during the McCarthy hearings. The film was based on the real life Zinc Miner’s Strike of 1951, and employed non-professionals involved in the actual struggle as actors and extras. Many of the miners were of Mexican descent.  

2.  On the Watefront(1954) Directed by Elia Kazan. Kazan, rather ironically given the nature of this film, named names during the McCarthy hearings. Classic tale of New York dockworkers. Stars Marlon Brando as washed-up boxer Terry Malloy. The film, Kazan, and Brando all won Oscars. 

3. The Angry Silence(1960) Directed by Guy Green. A film that is somewhat critical of British union organization. Stars Richard Attenborough as a man who bucks the party line.    

4. Man of Marble (1976) Directed by Andrzej Wadja. Story of Polish bricklayer who gained notoriety as a symbol for the labor movement.  

5. Harlan County U.S.A. (1977) Directed by Barbara Koppel. This famed documentary examines a group of 180 Kentucky coal miners striking against The Duke Power Company. 

6. Blue Collar (1978) Directed by Paul Schrader. Detroit factory workers played by Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, and Richard Pryor fight for their rights.  

 

7. Fist (1978) Directed by Norman Jewison. Based in 1930s Cleveland Ohio. Details the teamsters and their battles to unionize. Stars Sylvester Stallone as Johnny Kovak.  

8. Norma Rae (1978) Directed by Martin Ritt. Sally Fields shines as the titular character, a textile factory worker who stands up to vicious management tactics. Based on real life North Carolina worker and union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton.

 9. Matewan (1987) Directed by John Sayles. Story of 1920s West Virginia mine workers fighting low wages, squalid living arrangements, and even more dangerous working conditions. 

10. Moonlighting (1982) Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. Starring Jeremy Irons as a contractor in charge of a group of Polish tradesmen working illegally in the UK.

11. Riff Raff (1991) Directed by Ken Loach. Classic Loach, the master of films about the working class. Robert Carlyle stars as a London construction worker in love.  

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12. Bread and Roses (2000) Directed by Ken Loach. California janitors fight for their right to unionize. Adrien Brody stars as a union organizer. 

13. The Navigators (2001) Directed by Ken Loach. A group of British railway workers from Sheffield see their jobs privatized. Based on a screenplay from a longtime railway and union worker. 

14. North Country (2005) Directed by Niki Caro. Charlize Theron starred in this look at women being harassed by co-workers and management alike while working for a Northern Minnesota union mine company in the late 80s. Based on real life story of Lois Jenson.

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