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Recommended: Norma rae synopsis
Norma Rae is a film about a factory worker named Norma Rae. Norma was a low paid worker in a cotton mill. The cotton mill has poor working conditions and Norma took over the roll for the family to work and provide. She’s a single mother who provides for her family. She has two kids and both kids have different dads. She does however have a few guys that she flirts with and has things with. She Is against the company as a whole though because of the work environment and the way they treat their employees. Basically she starts to complain about how the company is not taking care of their employees. The management decides to try to promote her to get her to keep quiet. She takes the promotion because of the pay raise but then soon realizes that it was the wrong choice. Its her dad that actually convinces her to …show more content…
They start changing a lot of how the company shifts are ran which makes workers do more work at less pay. They even put up fliers with racial remarks to try to divide the white and black workers. Warshowsky tries to take pictures of the fliers to help the court case but management sends Warshowsky out and doesn’t let him take the picture. Norma makes a sign that says “UNION” and starts to show all the workers. Suddenly all the workers stop working and no one says a word. Norma went to jail because of what she did. After all this the factory has a vote on if they want the factory to become unionized. TV news cast and reporters report the entire thing. The difference of votes was 100 and it was in favor to unionize the factory. Norma did a really amazing thing by standing up for workers rights and by not letting any of the obstacles she faced on the way stop her from her main goal. Unionization of the factory will help protect every employee and set standards of safety so no one will get hurt and also protect the amount they get
...tural unions. Dolores Huerta’s energy, organizing, and speaking abilities only advanced the cause of the union.
The case study of GMFC provides an example of a company attempting to avoid unionization of its workers. GMFC is expanding by building a new U.S. plant which will manufacture motorized recreational equipment. The company plans to hire about 500 production workers to assemble mechanical components, fabricate fiberglass body parts, and assemble the final products. In order to avoid the expected union campaign by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) to organize its workers, GMFC must implement specific strategies to keep the new plant union-free. GMFC’s planning committee offers suggestions with regards to the plant’s size, location, staffing, wages and benefits, and other employee relations issues in order to defend the company against the negative effects of unionization and increase...
She got them rights for safer working conditions with safer machines. Before the factory workers had better rights and safer working conditions, many factory workers would have some of their limbs cut off by the machines. “Mother” Jones started non-violent marches to try and get the factory workers better rights. She didn’t succeed when she was alive, but the laws were passed a few years after she died. She raised the awareness of what happened in the factory, and that is one of the reasons those laws were passed.
She is fairly new to the work world and has lied on her resume’ to get hired, and realizes that the job is harder than she first thought. All hope is not lost because Violet assures her that she can be trained. She ends up succeeding at the company and telling her husband she will not take him back after he comes back begging for her love again.
Tensions between union supporters and management began mounting in the years preceding the strike. In April of 1994, the International Union led a three-week strike against major tracking companies in the freight hauling industry in attempts to stop management from creating $9 per hour part-time positions. This would only foreshadow battles to come between management and union. Later, in 1995, teamsters mounted an unprecedented national union campaign in attempts to defeat the labor-management “cooperation” scheme that UPS management tried to establish in order to weaken the union before contract talks (Witt, Wilson). This strike was distinguished from other strikes of recent years in that it was an offensive strike, not a defensive one. It was a struggle in which the union was prepared, fought over issues which it defined, and one which relied overwhelmingly on the efforts of the members themselves (http://www.igc.org/dbacon/Strikes/07ups.htm).
The film opens up with Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) showing up for her first day of work. It is quickly shown that this is her first job and she comes off as very naïve and scared. She was married and never had to have a job until her husband left her for his secretary. She seems to want to win him back so she decides to enter the workforce and also become a secretary. Judy meets Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin). She has worked for the company for over 12 years and made it to the supervisor of her department. However, she can’t
... were left unprotected and abandoned by the unions. How is it that the unions can demand labors lose months of wages, be subject to labor blacklisting and ultimately sacrifice their lives without any protections for the strikers and still claim success? They can’t. If anything, the Pinkertons who dispersed the crowd did more to help the worker, by reopening the Homestead, than the union had done. Thus, the unions were an utter failure in furthering the position of the laborer, as the laborer was better off before hand. Before unions the laborer had their life, as many died in failed strikes, and their dignity, as society at least held an intrinsic value in their lives. However, unions succeeded in decimating any chance of advancement by tarnishing the reputations of all laborers, leading to a direct decline in the socio-economic position of the blue-collar worker.
In 1916, Everett, Washington was facing severe economic difficulty. There was ongoing confrontation between business and commercial interests and labor and labor organizers. The laborer had numbers of organized rallies and speeches on the street. These were opposed by local law enforcement, which was firmly on the side of the business. On May 1, 1916 the Everett Shingle Weavers Union went on strike. The strike was settled quickly in favor of the mills owner, but one. This is when the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or “Wobbies” became involved and the trouble began. Many members of the IWW saw this to be an opportunity to organize and provide support for the strikers. When IWW organizer and speaker James Rowan arrived on Everett June 31, 1916, Everett became home to IWW newest “Free-Speech Fight”. Everett employers clashed with IWW stubbornness. On the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore, IWW’s speakers chose to speak. At first the speakers would get arrested and get released. Members were paid one dollar by the union for every day they were in jail. Everett jails were kept busy and Snohomish County Sheriff Donald McRae quickly became frustrated. McRae’s next solution was to arrest the speakers and send them to Seattle, instructing them not to return to Everett.
Blatant discrimination against African Americans and Hispanics was the norm in the 1950’s in many parts of the country. The miners are fighting for the same rights as the Anglo or white miners, who are safer because they are able to work in pairs. The company uses the fact that the miners were minorities as an excuse to not take them seriously. They think that they are lazy and would give up on the strike easily. At one point the company men say the Mexican miners are like children, and should be treated that
During WWII, women took over the work force, and had such inspirations as Rosie the Riveter. This created a generation of women who wanted more out of life than birthing children, and keeping a nice home for their husband. The end of the war, however, brought with it a decrease of working women. In the 1950’s the rate of working women had slightly rebounded to 29% following the post-war decrease in 1945. These women were well rounded, working outside the home, and still having dinner on the table by 5PM.
The movie shows the Hoover family a typical American dysfunctional family who are all at different stages of their lives. Each member of the family has their own odd quirk. The family includes Richard, the father, who gives motivational speeches on “The Steps to Being Successful” which is completely ironic because his motivational book is failing, the grandpa who is addicted to heroin, Dwayne, the son, who is slightly depressed and refuses to speak, Sheryl, the mother/wife, who is just trying to keep it all together for everyone and Frank, the uncle, had a failed suicide attempt. Abby, the daughter just landed a spot at the Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest. The whole family decides to pack up their van and take a road trip
The owner of the town and company George Pullman had workers’ wages get cut in addition to workers getting leadoff. Many people who worked for the company whose wages got cut had trouble affording the standard living costs in Pullman and were given “starvation wages.” The organization of the pissed off workers followed. The workers would go on a nationwide strike organized by the American Railway Union and was led by a man named Eugene debs. Eugene and his union was so powerful because they possessed the ability to paralyze the production of the railroad industry.
Many Americans choose to forget the past brutalities of child labor. Unfortunately, the past does not disappear. Child labor did take place in the U.S. and the Carolina Cotton Mill photograph is a prominent witness. Lewis Wickes Hine is the artist behind this powerful photo, which was taken in the early 1900s (Dimock). Hine’s Carolina Cotton Mill embodies the struggle of child labor through the incorporation of situational information, artistic elements such as lines and space, and cultural values.
Norma Rae a loom operator in the weaving room is an outspoken individual and is very out spoken about her poor working conditions such as excessive noise, long hours with short breaks, physical stress from standing for long periods and abnormally high temperatures in the work areas. Added to all this is management¡¦s apathy for the working conditions, as seen when her mother looses her hearing temporarily with little or no sentiment from the company doctor, who knows this is a common problem for the workers. With this setting, the film progresses through most of the stages for employee organization. While management tries to get the workers support to keep the union out, and labor struggles to get a foothold to develop worker unity and get the union elected as the official bargaining agent both sides violate federal laws or come precariously close. First the Unfair Labor Practices (ULP) of the union will be examined.
...ise in ways to easily break strikes, and the passage of anti-union legislation. While strikes have become much harder to begin and maintain successfully, citizens vying for change now have a better opportunity of reaching each other using vast media supplied by the internet, allowing for a chance of forming larger coalitions around the country .The methods used by social movements in the past still have great potential to show our current generations feasible ways of gaining social benefits, and while some actions may be considered radical, the drive and organization the labor movement displayed could still easily prove successful. A movement away from the endless and scattered interest groups and more towards organized and larger movements aiming for improving the greater social good could bring about political and economic improvement that many Americans desire.