Norma Rae (Sally Field) – mill work in the South
Matewan (Chris Cooper) – union organizing in the South
Bread and Roses (Adrian Brody) – Latino service worker organizing in Los Angeles
Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin) – satire on modern industrial work and life
On the Waterfront (Marlon Brando) – film on union corruption
Nine to Five (Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin) – satire on office work and clerical/management relations
Gung Ho! (Michael Keaton) – satire on the Japanese acquisition of an American car factory
Roger and Me (Michael Moore) – documentary on Flint,Michigan and GM
F.I.S.T. (Sylvester Stallone) – drama based on the Teamster’s union
Hoffa (Danny DeVito, Jack Nicholson) – based on the life of IBT president Jimmy Hoffa
Silkwood (Meryl Streep) – based on the life of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear plant employee
The China Syndrome (Jack Lemmon) – film about a possible nuclear plant meltdown
Erin Brockovitch (Julia Roberts) – an investigator uncovers health and safety issues at Pacific Gas and Electric plants
The Grapes of Wrath (Henry Fonda) – migrant workers in the West during the Depression
North Country (Charlize Theron) – deals with sexual harassment in the open pit mining industry
Molly Maguires (Sean Connery, Richard Harris) – Labor agitators in Pennsylvania
Wall Street (1987: Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen) – corruption on Wall Street and how it affects average workers
The Deer Hunter (Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken) – Ostensibly a war film, but one that also deals with working-class enthusiasm and
later disillusionment with the war
Click here for General Instructions for Written Assignments.
Image: Charlie Chaplin (seated) and Douglas Fairbanks at the signing of the contract establishing United Artists motion picture
studio.1919. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.
Click here to read the Evaluation Criteria for Written Assignments.
5. Overview
Topic Overview
In this module we will discuss the development of the labor movement and the workplace after World War II to the end of the
twentieth-century.
Module Objectives
This module will discuss the following themes:
The effects of Vietnam on working people;
Labor and the Cold War;
The development of the post-war corporation and its impact on workers;
Consumerism;
Workers in popular culture;
The loss of American manuacturing jobs;
Increases in public sector employment and the rise of public sector unionization;
The effect government social programs in the 1960s and 1970s on workers, and the impact of the Reagan era on working people, and
The decline of the labor movement.
Readings/Preparation
Foster Rhea Dulles and Melvyn Dubofsky Labor in America A History Eighth Edtion 2010, chapters 19 to 21. pages 325-364
Jefferson Cowie 2010 Stayin Alive The 1970s and the last days of the woking class, Introduction, Chapter 1 pages 24-74, Chapter 4
pages 168-209 , Chapter 7 pages 314-356.
Jonathan Rees and Johnathan Pollack The Vovise of the People 2004, pages 185 to 224.
Learning Activities
You will be asked to write a review of a labor-themed film.
Discussions
We will discuss labor movements from the late 1940s to 2000.
Due Dates
To view the due dates for this module, click on the Course Schedule.
Image : Poster showing head-and-shoulders of woman operating a machine as part of World War II production effort. It reads “”I’ve
found the job where I fit best!” find your war job in industry, agriculture, business.” Washington, D.C. : Office of War Information,
1943. Library of Congress Photograph and Prints. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90707072/.
Teacher note:
As you read for this week, think about how our economy and workplace structures developed, and changed, over the half-century after
the war.
Note that your essay assignment for this unit requires you to view a labor-focused theme, and to then put that film into dialogue with
what you are learning. You can choose from a list of films. Note that I am not interested in a film review here, like what you might
find on Rotten Tomatoes. Rather, I’m interested in an essay in which you use the film to explore themes we have studies. Note that you
are reading a chapter of Jefferson Cowie’s Stayin’ Alive that is a good example of how to do this sort of cultural film analysis. I
would recommend seeing the film this week, and then working on the paper next week.
Though the mid-20th century is often viewed as a period of a stable “labor-management” accord, in fact there were many strikes as
union members and managers disputed workplace issues.
Take, for instance, the 1959 steel strike. A half a million steelworkers struck for 116 days in the summer and fall of 1959. The
strikers accounted for nearly one percent of the entire U.S. workforce. The central issue in the strike was “Section 2-B” of the
contract which had to do with work rules on the job. Management wanted more rights to move people around into various jobs, and union
members wanted to retain more control over work assignments. Though the specific regulation in the contract was small, the fight
turned into a large one.
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