Throwback Thursday: “Bad Labor – No Coffee Break” Movies

Hollywood is filled with movies honoring working people and labor unions. I like labor unions but not everyone does – and well, labor unions (or union leaders) haven’t always been perfect. On Labor Day, we ran a pro-labor list but to reflect that other viewpoint, this edition of Throwback Thursday focuses on a Labor Behaving Badly list – films about bad or crooked union bosses, strikes gone wrong, workers behaving badly, and even a few anti-union films.

On The Waterfront (1954)

This excellent drama from director Elia Kazan is the gold standard of this kind of film, with a corrupt union boss (Lee J. Cobb) who have become a virtual dictator, treating the union like his own little army to do his bidding. One man, Terry Malone (Marlon Brando), stands up to him and breaks the power of the boss. Bad behavior indeed, and one heck of a good movie.

Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)

Union corruption, violence, drugs and prostitution – labor is keeping pretty bad company here. Set in a crime-ridden Brooklyn, it the lives of a mixed group of people struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder. Stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as a prostitute who falls in love with a client.

F.I.S.T. (1978)

Said to be a fictionalized version of Jimmy Hoffa’s rise to union power, Norman Jewison’s drama features Sylvester Stallone as Johnny Kovak, a man who joins the Teamsters union and works his way up, becoming more ruthless as he climbs. Not as stylish a film as Hoffa, and one thing is sure: Sylvester Stallone is no Jack Nicholson.

Waiting for Superman (2010)

Know what’s wrong with public schools? Huge class sizes? More spending on athletics than academics? School superintendents getting huge salaries? Naw, it’s teachers unions! High schools really DO need a principal and two vice principals for every grade, plus an executive principal for the whole school.

I’m All Right, Jack (1959)

The Brits had problems with complacent, bloated unions and corrupt union leaders in the post-WWII years too, but this film tackles that issue by going the mocking, cynical humor instead of “On The Waterfront’s” drama. Peter Sellers plays goofy Fred Kite, a dimwitted union leader who adores the Soviet Union and believes his workers should do as little work as possible. The strike was actually deliberately provoked. as away to raise his price on a lucrative military contract. More a case of dumb union leaders rather than corruption.

Blue Collar (1978)

Union corruption is the theme here, clearly in the vein of “On the Waterfront.” Three Detroit auto workers (Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto), unhappy with both management and the union, decide to break in a local union office and rob it. The cash amount in the safe is disappointingly small but they find something else – documents suggesting links to organized crime and other signs of union leader corruption.

Billy Elliot (2000)

The main story of this film is about a working-class boy who does something unexpected by falling in love with ballet, but the backdrop is Northeast England during the 1984-85 coal miners strike. Local miners went on strike, trying to prevent the shutdown of the mines by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but it all went wrong. In some areas, miners kept working, the union failed to take a vote at the national level, and many other unions didn’t support the striking miners union. The failure of the strike was a major blow to unions in Britain, Britain went from 174 mines in 1983 to 6 in 2009, many of the mining towns vanished, and Britain now imports most of its coal.

North Country (2005)

Neither management or union officials look good in this fictionalized film based of the efforts of several real women in the ’70s and ’80s, who dared to want to work jobs in formerly men-only industries. Charlize Theron plays the beleaguered composite character, a single mother drawn to that bigger paycheck for “men’s work” and outside the low-paid “pink collar” fields. Management is sexist, co-workers are abusive and the union does nothing to help.

The Molly Maguires (1970)

In the pre-union years of the Industrial Revolution, both bosses and workers could get pretty bare-knuckled to get what they wanted. Based on a true story, this film about Pennsylvania coal miners features a thuggish proto-union group, the Molly Maguires, led by Jack Kehoe (Sean Connery), battling the company for better pay and decent working conditions. Unlike actual unions, the Molly Maguires don’t mind breaking equipment, heads or laws. But the bosses play tough too – they call in the Pinkertons and things get bloody. The film is directed by Martin Ritt, who also directed “Norma Rae.”

Won’t Back Down (2012)

Kind of a fictional version of “Waiting for Superman,” with two moms (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis) deciding the teachers union is to blame for their failing school. However, in this version, the corrupt teachers union is working with a corrupt school board to make everything bad for students. But the solution is the same as “Waiting for Superman” – privatized public “charter” schools, which actually, on average, have the same success rate as regular public schools or worse. As this film sees it, good teachers are on call 24/7 and don’t expect to be paid for their work – they just do it for the love of their students.