Friday Movie Night - Labor Day & The Inheritance

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hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

This weekend is Labor Day. Unfortunately and surprising, there doesn't seem to be a modern, award winning, high quality full length documentary on the history of labor in the United States. It's so bad, it's difficult to find any labor history made past the 1980's. Amazingly enough, people are not being informed how labor gave most Americans the quality of life and employment rights most take for granted today.

With that, the below clip explains where Labor Day came from. No, it wasn't created for mega sales,

 

Labor Day History

 

Next up, first up is a playlist (it will play continuously) of the History of Labor in the United States.

Labor History

 

This next clip will kill you. Most meatpacking jobs are now filled with illegal labor.

Short Documentary from 1986

 

20/20 from 1985

 

1987 Nightline 1987 on Reagan & Unions

 

1990's - "Must be Union Free"

 

Fast forward to where we are today....9.1% unemployment, high skilled jobs offshore outsourced, factories so moved offshore, so the entire nation looks hollowed, the bringing in cheap labor, illegal or on guest worker Visas, the biggest spike in part time labor, record income inequality, repressed wages, poverty dramatically spiking, all the while huge political forces try to blame labor for the current economic problems of the United States.

With that, this is a labor history film from 1964, The Inheritance. The film was originally made for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the film producers made it publicly available due to the recent attacks on organized labor and the very important right to collective bargain. Lots of rare stills, clips & photos from working and living conditions before labor became organized.

 

The Inheritance, Part I

 

The Inheritance, Part II

 

The Inheritance, Part III

 

The Inheritance, Part IV

 

Honorable mention, the History Channel does have a series of short video clips on labor.

Please share any labor documentaries you have and your thoughts on anything else in the comments.

Happy Labor Day to All!

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Comments

Jphnny Paycheck "Take This Job"

Wow! Awesome FMN round-up!

 

Remembering the 1970s when there still were working-class heroes -- here's the song that inspired a film in 1981, 'Take This Job And Shove It', by David Alan Coe (1977), famously recorded by the late great Johnny Paycheck.
Johhny Paycheck and friends at Gilley's 1978

Snapshot (right) taken at Gilley's Nightclub, 1 March 1978.

Johnny Paycheck with Johnny Lee (left) and Mickey Gilley (right).

(Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)

Link to Wiki image file

Link to Wiki article "Johnny Paycheck"

 

 

 

David Allan Coe video (1983) DavidAllanCoe.com free at YouTubeWith all due respect to the late great C & W singer, Johnny Paycheck (Donald Eugene Lytle, 1938 - 2003), here (left) is poster from available-free video at YouTube, 'Take This Job And Shove It', as performed by David Allan Coe and band in 1983.

And here's the link -- click here to go to YouTube for 'Take This Job And Shove It' by David Allan Coe, as sung by David Allan Coe in 1983

-- courtesy of DavidAllanCoe.com

 Excerpts from the lyrics, used here for educational and review purposes, are from LyricsKeeper.com

[David Allan Coe]

(Chorus)
Take this job and shove it I ain't workin' here no more
My woman done left and took all the reason I was working for
Ya, better not try and stand in my way
Cause I'm walkin', out the door
Take this job and shove it I ain't working here no more

Well, I been working in this factory for now on fifteen years
All this time, I watched my woman drownin' in a pool of tears
And I've seen a lot of good folks die who had a lot of bills to pay
I'd give the shirt right off of my back if I had the guts to say...

(Chorus)

The foreman, he's a regular dog the line boss, he's a fool
Got a brand new flat top haircut Lord, he thinks he's cool
One of these days I'm gonna blow my top and that sucker, he's gonna pay
I can't wait to see their faces when I get the nerve to say...

(Chorus)

 

And here's commentary by Jim Goad, from the chapter “Playin’ hard” from “The Redneck Manifesto", quoted by way of a CRACKED webzine, at webpage titled "Why Country Music Is Better Than Punk pt.2"

Country music is trauma music, with more booze, drugs, and murder than all other pop formats combined. More rubbed-raw emotions. More take-this-job-and-shove-it worker rage, too. For all its alleged reactionary spirit, country-and-western-lyrics address the indignities of working life far more than any other pop-format.

I think of Johnny Cash gulping down a bottleful of pills a day and tearing down hotel walls. The lonely heart-attack of Hank Williams in the back seat of that taxi. ... Tammy Wynette stumbling down a rural road dazed and covered in bruises. Entertainers, all of them. People who brought happiness to others. Miserable.

(Jim Goad, from the chapter “Playin’ hard” from “The Redneck Manifesto”)

 

Jim Goad's website

Wiki article on The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad (1997)

 

[All links verified functioning as of posting, 3 September 2011]