Movies to Watch on Labor Day WeekendLike this list

18 items

• Harlan County, USA

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  In 1973, when the Brookside coal miners voted for the United Mine Workers union, the Duke Power Company refused it. Barbara Kopple documented the struggle between the miners and the company, causing a big uproar.

• Future of Work

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  This three-part series explores monumental changes in the workplace and the long-term impact on workers, employers, educators and communities. Employment is part of the American Dream. Will the future provide opportunities for jobs that sustain…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• On the Waterfront

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  Marlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and institutional corruption. This film charts Terry's deepening moral crisis as he…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Norma Rae

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  Norma Rae, a textile worker in a small Southern town, discovers that she has a social conscience when a labor organizer arrives at her mill to establish a union.

• Roger & Me

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  A documentary about Flint, Michigan native Michael Moore and his efforts to meet with General Motors' president Roger Smith in order to persuade the executive to visit Flint, a city which is economically depressed due to the closure of a General…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Modern Times

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  When his boss demands more speed and efficiency, Chaplin goes crazy from his repetitious assembly line job. Primarily a silent film with music and sound effects, but occasional voices emanate from radios and television screens.

• Newsies

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  July, 1899: When Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst raise the distribution price one-tenth of a cent per paper, ten cents per hundred, the newsboys, poor enough already, are outraged. Inspired by the strike put on by the trolley workers,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Matewan

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  "Written and directed by John Sayles, this wrenching historical drama recounts the true story of a West Virginia coal town where the local miners' struggle to form a union rose to the pitch of all-out war in 1920. When Matewan's miners go on strike,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Up in the Air

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  Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert who flies all over the world on business. Just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles, and meeting the frequent traveler woman of his dreams, his company grounds him. When…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Office Space

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  When white-collar peon Peter Gibbons decides he's had enough and neglects his job, he is quickly promoted to upper management.

• 9 to 5

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  Three secretaries live every female worker's dream after discovering they share the same resentment towards their sexist boss.

• The Pajama Game

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  Labor and management at the Sleeptite Pajama Factory aren't sleeping much lately: A proposed 7.5-cent hourly wage increase is why, and a strike may result.

• Trading Places

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  Two old business partners bet that they can turn a street hustler into a successful businessman.

• The Grapes of Wrath

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  The migration of the Joad family to California from their dust-bowl farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression.

• Triangle Fire

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  The fire that tore through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the gruesome culmination of years of unrest in America's most profitable manufacturing industry. Two years earlier, led by a spontaneous walkout in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Silkwood

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  The story of Karen Silkwood, the Oklahoma nuclear facility worker who blew the whistle on dangerous practices at the Kerr-McGee plant and who died under circumstances which are still under debate.

• Working Girl

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  A bright Wall Street secretary rises to a professional position by posing as her classy but treacherous boss.

• North Country

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  Academy Award winner Charlize Theron (Monster) teams with Niki Caro, the award-winning screenwriter and director of Whale Rider, for this fictionalized version of the first successful legal prosecution of asexual-harassment case in the United…Read moreRead more of this annotation