April 22, 2002 UCSC staff and faculty contribute to Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival By Jennifer McNulty Working people organizing to better their lives is the theme of the upcoming Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival, which takes place April 28-May 4 at various locations around Santa Cruz County. Several UCSC faculty and staff members are contributing to the festival as speakers and filmmakers. The films in the festival are being screened at various sites around Santa Cruz County. The film festival opens April 28 with a screening of Sally Fields's Academy Award-winning performance in Norma Rae. Classic films such as Salt of the Earth are also part of the lineup. A complete schedule of screenings is available online. Admission to all screenings is by donation. The festival is the result of more than four months of planning by a coalition of volunteers that will culminate in a team of about 30 people working to put on the actual screenings, said Jeffrey Smedberg, one of the volunteer organizers of the film festival, which is being supported by 13 different union locals. "Nobody knows labor history, and too many people take for granted things like the weekend," said Smedberg. "We have weekends because people 100 years ago struggled, fought, insisted, and demanded some respect for the work we do. The eight-hour day, even the concept of health benefits and retirement, that's what the labor movement has achieved for working people. It's important to celebrate and remind people of that history." Labor historian Paul Ortiz, an assistant professor of community studies at UCSC, will participate in two days of the festival, including the 11 a.m. screening Sunday, April 28, at the Nickelodeon Theatre of Norma Rae, the film about textile-mill organizing in the South. "What I'm looking forward to is watching these great films, like Norma Rae, which show people in important struggles like unionizing the South," said Ortiz. "These struggles for better working conditions show us how people from different cultures and speaking different languages have come together. It's what we really need today in this country, to learn how to organize a multicultural movement." Labor history offers clues about how to build social movements across traditional divisions of black and white, men and women, immigrants and citizens, said Ortiz, coauthor of Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South. "It's about how to overcome divisions to unite for social justice," he said. Dana Frank, a professor of American studies and a prominent labor scholar, will speak on Wednesday, May 1, when Harlan County, USA will be screened at the Del Mar Theatre. The film is about the wives of Kentucky coal miners who struck against Duke Power. "I want to celebrate all the things the labor movement has brought to our daily lives," said Frank, the author of Buy American and coauthor of the recent book Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century. The films are being screened at venues around Santa Cruz County, including Watsonville, Cabrillo College, and UCSC, to make the films accessible to as broad an audience as possible, said Smedberg. The festival moves to campus on the evening of May 2 at Kresge Town Hall, where three films will be shown, including UCSC field studies coordinator Lisa Mastramico's new film UCSC Rallies about the campus labor rally that took place during the recent visit to UCSC by the UC Regents. Also being shown that night is Occupation, a film by Maple Razsa about the living-wage campaign at Harvard University. Ortiz will moderate a discussion with Razsa, who codirected Occupation. "My hope is that this film festival will bring people together," said Ortiz. "Studying labor's heritage is an important way to learn about a key part of our heritage. Seeing some of these films about the struggles of first-generation immigrants and what they have to do to earn lives of dignity and justice is going to be very inspiring." On Friday, May 3, films by UCSC community studies lecturer Geoffrey Dunn and media specialist Jon Silver will be shown at Cabrillo College's Watsonville Center beginning at 7 p.m. Dunn's film, Dollar A Day, 10 Cents A Dance, is about Filipino immigrant farmworkers in the Pajaro Valley. Silver produced and directed Watsonville On Strike about the 18-month labor struggle by cannery workers. Also being shown that night is Fighting for Our Lives about Cesar Chavez and the UFW grape boycott. Silver will attend the screening and discuss his work. Campus sponsors of the film festival include the Community Studies Department, the UCSC Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community, and the following unions that represent campus employees: the Coalition of University Employees, the University Council, University Professional and Technical Employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Return to Front Page