Be a Critic, Help DC Labor FilmFest Choose Shorts, Films That Is
 |
The 11th annual DC Labor FilmFest is set for Oct. 14-18 and you can put on your critic’s cap and help judge the short films that will make up the FilmFest’s Working Lunch presentations.
Click here to take a look at the 12 semi-finalist videos and then click here to rate each video and also add your comments. Be sure to complete the info at the end to be eligible for a raffle of Labor FilmFest swag!
This year’s FilmFest—at the American Film Institute (AFI) in Silver Spring, Md.—leads off with a 35th-anniversary screening of the classic “All the President’s Men” (starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) and includes “Locked Out,” “Made in Dagenham,” “Moon,” “The Company Men” (with Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper), “The Whistleblower” (with Rachel Weisz) and “Up in the Air” (with George Clooney).
We’ll bring you more details on the DC Labor FilmFest later this month. The FilmFest is sponsored the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute and the AFI.
Organizing and Art Join at Great Labor Arts Exchange
 |
There is still time to register for the Great Labor Arts Exchange and Conference on Creative Organizing, June 17–19 at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md.
The three-day festival brings together, more than 100 union and social justice activists who combine union mobilization and outreach with songs, skits, art, poetry, theater, posters, cartoons and film.
Sponsored for more than 30 years by the Labor Heritage Foundation, the Great Labor Arts Exchange celebrates the rich cultural heritage of working people and serves as a forum that brings together talented labor artists, activists, cultural workers, educators and students.
New this year is Camp Solidarity, designed to bring the arts and cultures of the union and progressive movements to a new generation.
For more information or to register online, click here or call 202-639-6204.
S.F. Mime Troupe Talks Union—Really—and Sings and Dances, Too
 |
|
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat—contrary to popular belief, mimes can talk. The silent mime we’re all accustomed to is just one form of the ancient theater art. Not only do mimes talk, they sing and dance in the legendary San Francisco Mime Troupe’s “Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker.”
The play (click on the accompanying video for a preview) premiered last summer in California and tells the story of worker uprisings in two factories, one in San Francisco and one in Argentina.
Now the troupe—members of Actors’ Equity (AEA)—would love to bring it to a wider audience on the East Coast in a March “Union Hall Tour.” The play is scheduled as part of the centennial activities honoring workers killed in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. Click here to see how you can help and here to read the San Francisco Labor Council’s (SFLC‘s) resolution endorsing the tour.
Trumka: Union Movement Must Reach Out More to People of Color
The election of Barack Obama is just the beginning of a new revolution to create the kind of America that provides a decent living, dignity and respect for all.
Speaking to the Labor Luncheon at the NAACP‘s centennial national convention in New York City yesterday, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said:
If we don’t seize this incredible moment, we may not get another chance and our grandchildren will never forgive us. Because you and I know that, as tremendous a victory as Barack Obama’s election was, we can’t let it be an achievement to rest on.
It was a milestone, but it wasn’t the finish line.
Trumka pointed out that African Americans are suffering disproportionately from the economic crisis and that the sluggish recovery threatens to wipe out the gains by black workers in the past decade.
Back to School to Learn Labor History
 |
||||
|
||||
As children begin returning to school after the holidays, AFT is providing tools for educators to teach them things they ought to know about America’s labor history. A special section in the winter edition of American Educator, the union’s quarterly journal, focuses on the importance of including labor history in our classrooms.
With the key protections for workers unions have gained under attack, there is a greater need for the next generation to understand the real role of working men and women in building the nation and making it a better place, contributors to the journal say.
James Green, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, explains that learning about the role of working men and women shows students “the contributions that generations of union activists have made to building a nation and to democratizing and humanizing its often brutal workplaces.”
While their predecessors successfully fought for monumental changes that benefited all Americans (not just union members), such as passing the Social Security Act of 1935 and ending child labor, today’s union veterans can take pride in their own accomplishments. For example, they pushed for mine safety laws and workers’ compensation laws. They fought for the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
