Thank you Peter for sharing your critical review of "American Dream". In a corporate buy-out situation in late 1996 a strike developed in the Salt Lake valley as the Hexcel Corporation bought out Hercules Corporation and tore up the existing union contact with OCAW Local 2591. I had a longtime working relationship with OCAW leaders in several locals and was able to encourage our new, young Solidarity chapter to actively solidarize with the strike, i.e. we took over the picket line on Christmas and New Years. We got to know OCAW activists who were interested in our socialist views and we discussed organizing an educational/solidarity event to reach out to their co-workers. I suggested screening "American Dream" which i perceived as showing an inspiring grass-roots fight in a discouraging situation (like that facing OCAW at Hexcel). OCAW members informed me that the Hexcel corporation had already convened a screening for all employees at work to discourage them from putting any hope in labor unions. Dayne
On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 3:12 PM Peter Rachleff <rachl...@macalester.edu> wrote: > > " Harlan County" is a great film. > And then Kopple did a hatchet job on the Hormel strikers and > won an Oscar for it! And then she kissed Woody Allen's ****.in > a truly dreadful film. > > I offer my review from ORAL HISTORY REVIEW journal: > AMERICAN DREAM [Film]. BarbaraKopple, producer-director. > 1990. Color. 100 min. 16 mm., also 35 mm. Distributor:Miramax, 375 > Greenwich Street, N.Y., NY 10013,(212) 941-3800. > > The 1980s was the worst decade for working people since the Great > Depression of the 1930s. Mines, mills, and factories closed; workers lost > their jobs; unions were broken; union organizing drives failed; wages > and benefits slid backwards;and union influence receded. By 1990, 84% > of American workers were employed in non-union settings. > In American Dream-the 1991 Academy Awardwinner for "best > documentary feature"-BarbaraKopple uses the 1985-86 Hormel strike > as a microcosm of this decade. Hormel, a profitable employer with a > brand new plant, demanded its workers take substantial wage and benefit > cuts because its competitors were getting concessions from their work- > ers. When the workers resisted and went on strike, Hormel followed > the new practice of the 1980s and "permanently replaced"them. Men > and women with thirty and forty years' seniority,whose parents and grand- > parents had given their lives to Hormel, found themselves cruelly cast > aside. > But the significance of the Hormel strike did not rest solely on this > corporate juggernaut and the broken lives left in its wake. Two other ele- > ments were equally critical-that the workers chose to fight back, and > that, when they did so, their own international union refused to support > them. . . . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29042): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29042 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104497027/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
