The Courage of the Commonplace

In the California apple country, 900 migratory workers rise 'in dubious battle' against the landowners. The group takes on a life of its own—stronger than its individual members, and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike is founded on his tragic idealism—'courage, never submit, or yield'.

At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

“บ็อกซ์คาร์” เบอร์ธา ทอมป์สัน หญิงสาวชั่วคราวในอาร์คันซอในช่วงภาวะเศรษฐกิจตกต่ำอันเต็มไปด้วยความรุนแรงในช่วงต้นทศวรรษปี ค.ศ. 1930 ได้พบกับ “บิ๊ก” บิล เชลลี สมาชิกสหภาพแรงงานผู้ก่อความไม่สงบ และทั้งสองร่วมมือกันต่อสู้กับสถาบันการรถไฟที่ทุจริต

Naive Stanley Windrush looks for a career in a family business. Much to his dismay, he finds work at a munitions factory where he has to start from the bottom, while both the management and the labor union use him as a tool in their fight for power.

Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide.

A gallery of characters in Brooklyn in the 1950s are crushed by their surroundings and selves: a union strike leader discovers he is gay; a prostitute falls in love with one of her clients; a family cannot cope with the fact that their daughter is illegitimately pregnant.

Norma Rae is a southern textile worker employed in a factory with intolerable working conditions. This concern about the situation gives her the gumption to be the key associate to a visiting labor union organizer. Together, they undertake the difficult, and possibly dangerous, struggle to unionize her factory.

An Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who had been hired by the factory's boss to help oppose the workers' demand for a pay raise.

เกรซ (นิโคล คิดแมน) หญิงสาวที่มีภูมิหลังลึกลับ หนีการไล่ล่าของแก๊งอาชญากรจนมาถึงด๊อกวิลล์ หมู่บ้านแห่งหนึ่งในอเมริกาในยุคเศรษฐกิจ ตกต่ำ เธอได้รับความเห็นใจและความช่วยเหลือจาก ทอม (พอล เบทานี) ชายหนุ่มช่วยเกลี้ยกล่อมให้คนในหมู่บ้านยอมรับสาวแปลกหน้า ชาวบ้านตกลงให้ที่พัก พิงแก่เธอ และเพื่อเป็นการตอบแทน เกรซยอมทำงานทุกอย่างตามแต่ที่จะถูกใช้ ความน่ารักและขยันขันแข็งของหญิงสาว ทำให้ชาวบ้านเริ่มเป็นมิตรและเอ็นดู เธอ แต่แล้ว..เมื่อถึงคราวคับขัน ผู้คนในเมืองนี้กลับเปลี่ยนไป..และไม่มีวันกลับมาเหมือนเดิมอีกเลย..