Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrack - with legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reece - the film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

Harland County USA

A heartbreaking record of the 13 month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

In 1984 the Hormel meat-packing company offered its Austin, Minn., union workers a new contract in which their wage would be cut from $10.69 to $8.25 an hour, and other benefits would be cut by 30 percent. The workers were not overjoyed. The company had just declared an annual profit of $29 million, and the cuts seemed inspired by a management desire to maximize profits at the cost of any other consideration. [...] The people in this film are so real they make most movie characters look like inhabitants of the funny page. Families are torn apart. One brother goes back to work, another stays on the picket lines. Workers have tears in their eyes as they describe not being able to support their families. It becomes clear that no possible win by the members of P-9 could compensate them for the wages they have already lost - especially as they are striking, not for a raise, but against a pay cut. A nobility creeps onto the scene, as people make enormous financial and personal sacrifices simply for what they believe is morally right. Our hearts are torn, because on the basis of this film we are not sure they have chosen the wisest path. Stories like the Hormel strike are too long and complicated to be told on a daily basis. Only a documentary like this has a canvas big enough for the whole picture. Is there a lesson at the end of "American Dream"? I think there is. I think the lesson is that the American tradition of collective bargaining will break down if companies can simply ignore a legal strike, hire replacements, and continue as before. There was a time in American history when such behavior by management would have been seen as not only illegal but immoral. The new management philosophers who won ascendency in the 1980s dismiss such views as sentimentalism. They are concerned only with the bottom line, where they see profits, not people. The White House announced that for a recent overseas trip, the video library on Air Force One was stocked with "Gone With the Wind." Next flight, could they take along "American Dream"? (<a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/american-dream-1992" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Source</a>)

American Dream

Oscar-winning Barbara Kopple doc that recounts the 1985-86 strike against the Hormel Foods Corporation in Minnesota after its employees' wages and benefits were cut.

'Harland County USA' & 'American Dream'

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Tickets are now disabled and the Season 14 Virtual Fest (10/24-10/30) has ended, but you can still view trailers. Winners will be announced later this month on our website, followed by an open call for 2026 submissions via FilmFreeway. Questions? melanie@workersuniteff.org

The Workers Unite Film Festival is a celebration of global labor solidarity, bringing together activists, academics, and filmmakers all over the world who aim to publicize the struggles, successes, and daily lives of workers. We are non-profit, based out of NYC, and in our 14th season.

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