Three Documentaries about Organized Labor

The technical possibilities of film as a research and recording tool have long been recognized. Whatever the reasons why sociologists have pursued our studies without making and disseminating films, we have consumed the films of nonsociologists with avidity as well as suspicion. We use them as examples and illustrations. We treat them as primary data for our discussions of popular culture and commonly held values. But there is no generally accepted system of standards for certifying the scholarly acceptability of films, and there are no routine channels in which films can be circulated and used as scholarly contributions. The documentary films under review here represent the mature work of a distinguished company of filmmakers who have been producing actively for about twenty years, using film as a method of social investigation and analysis. As a group, the three films also present a rare document of organized labor at the local level and a historical record of ten years of transformation of American economic relations. As a longitudinal sequence of case studies, they reveal a process of industrial deinstitutionalization. Taylor Chain I and II and The Last Pullman Car are films about how individual locals of the United Steelworkers of America deal with management at plants in the industrial area of Southeast Chicago and Gary-Hammond, Indiana. Taylor Chain I: Story in a Union Local is black-and-white and consists almost entirely of recorded footage and sounds, with a minimum of printed captions identifying places. times, participants, and major events, as the USWA local works for a new three-year contract with the Taylor Chain Company

Art · Business · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Management and Organizational Studies

• Documentary Film, Teaching, and the Accumulation of Sociological Insight

  Open Access•Chris Wellin•Teaching Sociology•2013

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