Your Social Security(1952)

Miners Shot Down(en)

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

The old(fr)

They come from all walks of life and have lived for almost a century. They have lived through the upheavals of history. They are funny, moving and rebellious. They surprise and amaze us. Yet we rarely hear their voices. This film is an invitation to travel across France and meet them: the Old People.

Fluisteraars(nl)

Destroying your own artwork. For many artists it is unmentionable, but Loes Heebink from Kolderveen irreparably destroyed her artwork "Fluisteraars" herself and came up with the idea for a documentary of the same name, directed by Saskia Jeulink.

Jobs for All!(sv)

A highly choreographed review of the Industrial Age as we know it today – an intense and playful roller coaster ride that demands the viewer confronts how “work works.” Culled entirely from archival footage, the film unfolds in the filmmakers’ trademark, and humorously critical, cinematic voices.

Harlan County U.S.A.(en)

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

My Father(en)

This short documentary is a tribute to the unknown father. Emerging filmmaker Danic Champoux poses the question "How many men still have to uproot themselves and leave their families to get work?" as he sets out to search for his own father. He wonders about these men who are labourers, itinerants, and mostly nameless, but who are all exemplary providers. But at what cost? This film was produced as part of the Libres Courts collection of first-time documentary shorts.

The Hand That Feeds(en)

Behind the scenes of a popular deli on New York's Upper East Side, undocumented immigrant workers face sublegal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma López has never been interested in politics, but in Jan. 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back. Risking deportation and the loss of livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming an independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one rollercoaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two month lockout. Lawyers will battle in backroom negotiations, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his compañeros won't be exploited again.

American Dream(en)

When workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota are asked to take a substantial pay cut in a highly profitable year, the local labor union decides to go on strike and fight for a wage they believe is fair. But as the work stoppage drags on and the strikers face losing everything, friends become enemies, families are divided and the very future of this typical mid American town is threatened.

Yama – Attack to Attack(ja)

This extraordinary documentary is an unflinching record of the workers’ struggle during Japan’s economic rebirth in the 1980s, centered on Tokyo’s Sanya “yoseba”—a slum community dating from the 19th century where day laborers lived in terrible conditions while they sought work.

Les jours heureux(fr)

Grey Ambition(en)

Canadian seniors over 65 are staying active through philanthropy, the arts, volunteerism, education, entrepreneurship, or the workplace. Profiled here are a fashion tycoon gone back to school in his 80s, a 95 year old who builds and flies airplanes, a competitive darts player and painter without hands, an entrepreneur, an avid community volunteer, and a couple in their 90s who continue to teach roller skating.

The Braceros, An Oregon Experience(en)

World War II created a huge demand for American farm products. But the war also caused vast numbers of farm workers to abandon the fields, either to join the military or to seek work in the cities. The solution would be a unique contract-worker agreement between the United States and Mexico -- The Bracero Program.

The Research Director(en)

A description of the work of a research director of a United Steel Workers Union in Canada. The painstaking research and analyses of economic information, and the arrangement of arguments that lie beneath the negotiations of labour unions for better wages and working conditions are shown.

The Road Taken(en)

This 1996 documentary takes a nostalgic ride through history to present the experiences of Black sleeping-car porters who worked on Canada's railways from the early 1900s through the 1960s. There was a strong sense of pride among these men and they were well-respected by their community. Yet, harsh working conditions prevented them from being promoted to other railway jobs until finally, in 1955, porter Lee Williams took his fight to the union.

Walkout: The School Funding Rebellion(en)

The lowest paid teachers in the nation are in the middle of a statewide walkout in Oklahoma. From start to finish, Walkout follows the teachers as they get organized and demand raises from their state legislature. From crowded classrooms to a packed state capitol, Walkout offers an in-depth, personal look at the latest strike at the heart of a nationwide movement for education funding.

La vida más larga(es)

Youth (Spring)(zh)

This film was shot between 2014 and 2019 in the town of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City in Zhejiang province, China. Zhili is home to over 18,000 privately-run workshops producing children's clothes, mostly for the domestic market, but some also for export. The workshops employ around 300,000 migrant workers, chiefly from the rural provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan and Jiangsu.

Big Brother: A World Under Surveillance(fr)

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism or crime, the major powers have embarked on a dangerous race for surveillance technologies. Facial recognition cameras, emotion detectors, citizen rating systems, autonomous drones… A security obsession that in some countries is giving rise to a new form of political regime: numerical totalitarianism. Orwell's nightmare.

Children of Labor: A Finnish-American History(en)

How Finnish immigrants came into contact — and conflict — with industrial America. Three generations of Finnish-Americans recount how they coped with harsh realities by creating their own institutions: churches, temperance halls, socialist halls, and cooperatives.

Tokyo Uber Blues(ja)

Shot with a mix of smartphones and GoPros, filmmaker Taku Aoyagi takes us on his daily bike rides as an Uber Eats worker. But pedaling on Tokyo’s deserted streets, delivering boba tea to cloistered condos, he starts to wonder… what was it that Ken Loach said about the Uberization of society? And what does gig-work offer an unemployed young person with student debt?