Film made by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to educate its younger members about the movement they were “inheriting.”
With These Hands (1950)
Not exactly a documentary, this film was made by the ILGWU on its 50th anniversary to highlight the union’s accomplishments (w/ some anticommunist propaganda).
Harlan County, USA (1976)
Follows the 1973 United Mine Workers strike in Harlan County, KY—a place with a strong history of worker resistance.
American Dream (1990)
The story of the spirited, controversial, & ultimately unsuccessful Hormel strike in 1985-86 led by Local P-9 of the UCFW in Minnesota.
The Wobblies (1979)
The epic story of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
The exploitation & struggles of Mexican maquila workers in Tijuana.Â
The Take (2004)
After Argentina's 2001 economic collapse, factory workers break into abandoned factories to restart production on a cooperative basis.
Nae Pasaran (2018)
Story of the Scottish machinists who refused to repair plan engines for Pinochet’s Chilean dictatorship in the 1970s & the impact of their solidarity.
🧵I've seen no indication that Histadrut's gen strike was intended as an act of solidarity w/ Palestinians experiencing a genocide. The *exclusive* concern was Israeli captives. Any pressure that may stop the genocide- even if only incidentally- is welcome, but let's acknowledge
the implicit dehumanization of this, which fits neatly w/ Histadrut's long history of explicit racism.
Prior to the 1980s/90s Histadrut wasn't just a union federation, but was the 2nd largest employer in the State of Israel after the government. Since it's founding in 1920, it
was an instrument of settler-colonialism/"nation-building," creating a Jewish-only economy in Mandatory Palestine that very intentionally excluded & economically displaced indigenous Palestinian workers.
Prior to 1948, Histadrut established Jewish-only farms & factories,
Not many people know that Rachel Corrie was a proud union member w/ SEIU. After she was killed 21 years ago today in Rafah, some of her fellow SEIU members tried to pass a resolution to divest from Caterpillar, but union officials stopped it. 🧵
Through her job at Behavorial Health Resorces in Washington State, Corrie was an active member of SEIU 1199NW. After she was killed, 1199NW's leaders sent this letter to her parents noting her activism in the union. labournet.net/world/0502/rac…
She also volunteered with Evergreen State College's Labor Center "and played a major role in organizing a conference dealing with networking and strategies for justice and peace" in 2002. electronicintifada.net/content/rememb…
Dr. King is celebrated today, but when he called for a ceasefire in Vietnam in 1967 & denounced US militarism, he faced almost universal backlash from the political & media establishment, including from moderate Black leaders who distanced themselves from him. 🧵
The NAACP & its executive director, Roy Wilkins, called Dr. King's antiwar stance a "serious tactical mistake." Wilkins said of the war: "when you're out there being fired at, you have to fight back."
Diplomat Ralph Bunche & Senator Edward Brooke, both prominent African Americans, also criticized Dr. King's opposition to the war, essentially telling him to stay in his lane & stick to civil rights advocacy.
To my union siblings in the US labor movement: we have a special obligation to stand in solidarity with Palestine.
Please read this 🧵 for some historical background on why I say that.
Our labor leaders have historically been some of the loudest defenders of Israel. Here is one example: when Israel invaded Lebanon & laid siege to Beirut in 1982, the AFL-CIO took out an ad in the NYTimes to express full support for Israel.
Another example, from 1980: AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland urged opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state. He frequently said a Palestinian state would be a “terrorist state."