Labor goes to the movies

Monthly Labor Review, March, 2005 by Michael Wald

Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An Expanded Guide to Films about Labor. By Tom Zaniello. Ithaca, NY, ILR Press, 2003, 434 pp., $52.50/cloth; $24.95/paperback.

It had to happen. Working is such a major part of most of our lives that it is only natural filmmakers would find working and workers a rich subject to explore. The greater surprise is that there are not more films focused on the activity that takes up a majority of our waking hours. So it should not come as a surprise that someone has attempted to catalog films about labor. In fact, it has happened at least twice--this is Tom Zaniello's second attempt to catalog films of this genre. Set in alphabetical order by film title, each review includes basic: information about the cast and crew, a review of the movie, and references for further reading. He also includes a chronological list to give the reader some context of how the films relate to each other over time.

At first, it seems an easy task, but as you delve into the subject the complexities become apparent. What characterizes a film as being worthy of inclusion in a guide to the cinema? There are lots of films that include pictures of working men and women, but usually their work is only a small part of the plot. Do you include the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film You've GotMail whose plot is driven by the competition between a small bookstore owner and a bookstore chain? Zaniello's answer would be no, as he does not include this in his list. Instead, he sets out his criteria to include films about unions and labor organizations, labor history, working-class life, political movements tied to organized labor, and struggles between labor and capital. Not surprisingly, he includes such classics as Norma Rae and The Full Monty, although in reality, many of his films are small films or documentaries not known to the general public.

Looking through the titles, although he calls this an expanded guide, he means it is expanded from his first edition, not that his definition of labor has expanded. His criteria tend to favor subjects that focused on organize0 labor, as opposed to a wider definition of labor. So, he includes Sylvester Stallone's F.I.S.T. but not Double Indemnity, the dark film noir story that revolves around Fred MacMurray as an insurance agent out to cheat his company through murder and insurance fraud. Both revolve around the dark side of work and labor, but the lack of a union connection in the Billy Wilder film appears to keep it from being included in the book.

Unlike the films mentioned above, the second difficulty that Tom Zaniello faced was the relative obscurity of many of the movies. In his Introduction, he discusses how he learned about these various films, but it is still amazing that he was able to include films that are probably only known today to a few thousand people worldwide, such as the 1932 classic, Land without Bread. Most of the films in the book are not readily available at your neighborhood video store, but many of them can be found using the Internet, and Zaniello includes a list of sources for the reader interested in tracking down these titles.

Putting together the list is itself the greatest value of this book. The book brings together in one place movies lost to the current generation and reminds us of the drama and humor implicit in working. Most readers will have found that they have seen one or more of these films at some time in their life and realize how many they have missed. Whether or not it spurs the reader to explore this rich depth of creative work, Working Stiffs is both a valuable reference work and an enjoyable book in its own right.

Michael Wald Bureau of Labor Statistics, Atlanta region