loaded question: what are some great movies about unions and the fight for workers’ rights?

Today is Labor Day in the United States, but workers on both sides of the Atlantic have been fighting mightily this year for better pay, better treatment on the job, and better security in their work. From the Writers Guide of America to Starbucks baristas in the US to railroad workers and NHS doctors in the UK, industrial action on a scale unseen in perhaps decades is remaking economic landscapes.

Such events are, of course, rife with personal and cultural drama, and movies have not been shy about depicting the plight of ordinary workers, though these sorts of social-justice stories have been few and far between in recent years.

What are some great movies about unions and the fight for workers’ rights?

My pick is 1979’s Norma Rae, in which Sally Field — who won an Oscar for her performance — plays a worker in a North Carolina cotton mill who organizes a union for the mistreated workforce there. I haven’t seen this since long before I started reviewing films, but I have fond memories of it. And it would be a perfection addition to my Movies for the Resistance list.

Your turn…

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