Workflix and chill: join us for movies, talk and education

WorkFlix is an online conversation of the USW Education and Membership Development Department that brings USW activists, staff and leadership together in this time of crisis.

We are sharing our favorite labour films and, through our Zoom meetings, reinforcing the universal issues that concern us all as workers and activists.

Click here and let us know if you have any issues accessing the films we're discussing.

Please join us for our next Workflix! 

Tuesday, June 30: Pride

Click here to register for the 1 p.m. EST discussion.
Click here to register for the 8 p.m. EST discussion.

Meredith Stepp will lead our conversation about this celebrated 2014 film written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus. Based on a true story, Pride depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners' strike in 1984, at the outset of what would become the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign. The alliance was unlike any seen before.

Friday, June 26; SPECIAL SCREENING and Facebook Live Q&A: The Killing Floor 

This screening is hosted by the Siskel Film Center (this is not sponsored by the USW).

Register here for the 5 p.m. EST event: https://tinyurl.com/y8d4ycxq

The 1985 Sundance-Award winning film, The Killing Floor, speaks to the present moment in history.  The film explores a true story of the struggle a century ago to build a strong interracial union of black and white workers in the giant Chicago slaughterhouses in the face of the mounting racism that erupted in violence in the Chicago Race Riot of 1919.  White supremacist attacks (so-called “race riots”) took place in more than three dozen U.S. cities in the “Red Summer” of 1919.  

The Killing Floor can now be rented ($10 for a 3-day virtual pass) at any of these cinemas: https://filmmovement.com/the-killing-floor#playing

HERE'S WHAT YOU MISSED

May 13: Facebook Live with Mine 9 cast and crew

Our first film, Mine 9, prompted two lively discussions last week with over 50 members and a Facebook Live event with the filmmakers.

Tuesday, May 19: Group Discussion Silkwood

Diane Stein from the Tony Mazzocchi Center led our conversation about Karen Silkwood, the real life hero who fought for safe work conditions in her nuclear facility. This 1983 film stars Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher. 

Tuesday, June: Discussion on Spartacus (1960) 

Guillermo Perez led our conversation about Spartacus, the story of a slave turned gladiator who leads a slave revolt against the Roman Empire.  In the wake of the Red Scare of the 1950s, the film directly challenged the edict from the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (the MPA), that strongly advised against making movies that employed the “communistic tactics” of “smearing” the wealthy while glorifying the “common man” and “the collective.”  The film’s ending remains one of the most famous un-Hollywood Hollywood endings of all time. Directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglass, Laurence Oliver, Peter Ustinov.

Tuesday, June 16: Made in Dagenham

Joan Hill led our conversation about women who rally to fight for equal pay defying the corporate status quo. Set in a borough of London, the town’s main employer is the local Ford Motor Company plant. 187 women in the workforce sew seat covers.  This is a true story about the 1968 strike by the machinists leading to the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1970.  The women realize they are in a “man’s world” facing opposition by their own union.

Press Inquiries

Media Contacts

Communications Director:
Jess Kamm at 412-562-2446

USW@WORK (USW magazine)
Editor R.J. Hufnagel

For industry specific inquiries,
Call USW Communications at 412-562-2442

Mailing Address

United Steelworkers
Communications Department
60 Blvd. of the Allies
Pittsburgh, PA 15222