Rory Doherty at The Guardian reports: “We better start pulling together - or, by God, they’re going to bury us,” says a Meat Packer during a Union meeting in Barbara Kopple’s 1990 documentary American Dream. It’s a desperate plea for survival. “They” are the Hormel Foods Corporation, who took advantage of Union disorder to replace a huge portion of their workforce during a costly Strike. American Dream sees the 1985-86 labor crisis in Austin, Minnesota as symbolic of the state of Organized Labor in the United States - call it an alternative State of the Union address. The film, which has been restored and is re-released by Janus Films, was Kopple’s follow-up to Harlan County, USA, about the 1973 Brookside Strike in a Kentucky coal mine. The film, which celebrates its 50th anniversary later this year, is a more empowering watch than American Dream. In both works, Kopple uses roving, cinema vérité camerawork to capture the standoffs in all their frustration and perseverance, an extended, condensed timeline encapsulating the pressure that emboldens Workers together in solidarity, even as some grow weary of Union stubbornness. But the DNA of Harlan County, USA is also present in the many Union and Strike documentaries that followed it: Final Offer, about the 1984 contract negotiations with General Motors; and American Standoff, about a fraught Teamsters Strike against company Overnite Transportation beginning in 2000. More recently, Union followed the Amazon Labor Union’s historic attempt to Unionize an Amazon Warehouse on Staten Island, while the upcoming Who Moves America is a nationwide survey of UPS Drivers preparing to Strike as Teamster negotiators fight for an acceptable contract.

To Read This Labor News Report In Its Entirety, Go To: Strength in numbers: what have 50 years of labor union documentaries shown us? | Documentary films | The Guardian

And For More, Go To: 10 Essential Labor Union Documentaries: A Critic's Guide - Movies and Collections