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| Golden
Lands, Working Hands at a Glance |
| What It
Is |
Golden Lands, Working Hands, a ten-part, three hour
video series and curriculum, introduces
students, union members and the general public to California labor
history in
order to encourage understanding of the state's diverse working
populations and their efforts to find common ground in struggles
for social justice. It is
meant to be shown one part at a time in conjunction with reading
materials and lesson plans suitable for high school and college
students, and for union members in new member programs.
While several fine videotapes exist on selected topics within
California labor history, there has been no overview--until now.
Golden Lands, Working Hands explores stories selected
from more than a century and a half of struggle. Central themes
examined by the video are the choices made by working people in
the creation of their own organizations, and the consequences of
these choices for improvement of working people's lives. Close attention
is also paid to the ongoing recomposition of the California working
class through immigration, beginning with the Gold Rush and continuing
to the present day.
Much of this history has been unearthed through scholarship. But
Golden Lands, Working Hands makes these ideas accessible
to a broader audience. This is especially appropriate in light of
the ongoing state sesquicentennial. Golden Lands conveys
a picture of working people of diverse background and culture who
have, at crucial moments, overcome social barriers to achieve lives
of common dignity in California.
Directed, written and edited by Fred Glass for the California
Federation of Teachers. Narrator: Joe Morton. Reenactments and other
voices: Geoff Hoyle, Sharon Lockwood, Herbert Siguenza. Funding:
More than 400 contributions from union locals, councils and internationals,
mostly from California. Additional funding from California Council
for the Humanities, PG&E, and Kaiser Permanente. On-line post-production
services donated by KCSM TV.
Students will study labor history through viewing a series of
ten short videotapes on key events between the Gold Rush and the
present day. They will deepen their understanding of labor's contribution
to the political, cultural and economic development of the state
through linked readings and classroom activities such as role plays,
simulations, debates, small group discussions, and writing. Homework
assignments will include taking oral histories about work from family
members, neighbors, and friends, and keeping a journal about the
student's own work experiences. Each video-based lesson is flexible
and may be used on a stand alone basis, or in conjunction with the
others. They should prove useful in eleventh grade U.S. History
and in twelfth grade Government and Economics classes; or in classes
focusing on California history. Specifically, the audience of Golden
Lands, Working Hands will learn that:
1. Unionism is a tool developed by working people to achieve
the economic goal of material welfare and the social goal of full
citizenship; like any tool it may be used wisely, poorly, or not
at all.
2. Working people generally do well when they are able to unite
with one another across the boundaries of occupation, race, language,
religion, ethnic background and gender, and generally do poorly
when they are unable to find common ground.
3. History is not inevitable or outside the control of working
people; it is the result of choices made (or not made) and carried
out (or not carried out) by individuals and groups of individuals.
4. Workers' historical achievements are not guaranteed forever,
but represent ongoing battles, and must be defended time and again
to endure.
| Golden
Lands, Working Hands Video Segments |
1. Step by Step
Introduction to what unions do; addresses some common misconceptions;
concludes with a lively animated rap sequence. Discussion
starter on differences between labor history and other types
of history, and on the origins of workers' rights. 6 minutes
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2. "No Danger From Strikes Among Them"
Examines the rise of the California labor movement and its
first major statewide political formation, the Workingmen's
Party, which faced a choice between two programs: pro-union
vs Chinese exclusion. Anti-immigrant politics in California
began here. The parallels between this nineteenth century
phenomenon and present-day choices are clear. 15 minutes
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3. Bombs and Ballot Boxes
Explores differences for working people between union town
San Francisco and its open shop neighbor to the south, Los
Angeles, around the turn of the century. Sam Gompers, Clarence
Darrow, and Eugene Debs make guest appearances in the Los
Angeles story, which weaves the bombing of the anti-union
Los Angeles Times by ironworkers together with the labor-backed
campaign for mayor of Socialist Job Harriman. Meanwhile
P. H. McCarthy and the powerful Building Trades Council,
the great City Front Strike of 1901, the Union Labor Party,
the San Francisco earthquake, Wage Earners Suffrage League
and a brutal streetcar strike star up north. Also featured:
the Oxnard Beet Workers strike of 1903, with the first farm
labor union and strike in California, led by the Japanese-Mexican
Labor Alliance. 24 minutes
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4. Not So Jazzy
From the Wheatland Hop Riot of 1913 and the framing of Tom
Mooney to the Wall Street Crash, the realities behind the
nostalgia for "the jazz age" are exposed. Prosperity
for some people contrasts with low wages and terrible working
conditions in the mass production industries for most workers.
A repressive political atmosphere sends immigrants back
"home" and stops unionism-both AFL craft and IWW
industrial varieties-in its tracks. 10 minutes
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5. Labor on the March
The Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal provide the
background for a look at the explosion of militancy in the
west coast maritime trades, culminating in the San Francisco
General Strike of 1934. The Upton Sinclair campaign for
Governor brings the movies into California politics, transforming
the political process. Farm labor strife in the central
valley and a huge growth in union membership attends the
rise of the CIO, which, due to its philosophy of industrial
unionism, is a civil rights movement as well as a labor
movement. 18 minutes
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6. Battling for Democracy
The home front during World War II, California style: northern
California shipyards and southern California aircraft factories
provide a magnet for African-American, "Okie"
and women workers. Their entry into the workforce poses
a dilemma for unions: inclusive or exclusive membership
policies? The federal government brokers a deal between
labor and capital: a "no strike pledge" in return
for union recognition, dues checkoff and grievance procedures.
And under pressure from C. L. Dellums and A. Phillip Randolph,
FDR signs executive order 8802, mandating fair employment
practices in wartime industries for the duration of the
war. 8 minutes
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7. We Called It A Work Holiday
Post-war tensions are revealed by a strike of mostly women
retail clerks in two downtown Oakland department stores,
which expands to become the last city-wide General Strike
in US history. When the video repeats a newsreel segment
with alternative voiceovers, viewers learn how "news"-like
history itself-is constructed from a point of view. And
through the exemplary solidarity of streetcar driver Al
Brown, we learn how workers can make history, too. We also
gain a unique insight into the longest running farm labor
dispute until the 1960s, the DiGiorgio strike of 1947-50,
through the footage of a "lost film" made by Hollywood
supporters of the strike. 17 minutes
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8. Building the House They Lived In
Behind the prosperous surface of the fifties and labor's
high point in membership figures, California working people
face new challenges: the effects of the Cold War in labor,
how the struggle for a fair employment practices law creates
a labor/community/civil rights coalition, and the threat
of the right to work campaign of 1958, culminating in the
reunification of California AFL and CIO three years after
the national merger. 28 minutes
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9. Against the Tide
Two bright areas emerge in the 60s and 70s from the crossroads
of labor and civil rights movements. Farmworker organizing
soars around the Delano grape strike of 1965; and California
teachers, like other public sector workers, demand and achieve
collective bargaining laws. But these are bright spots in
a darkening picture of automation, deindustrialization,
capital flight, antiunion government policies and labor's
own failure to organize new sectors of the economy. The
struggle of auto workers at GM Van Nuys against a threatened
plant closure typifies this era for industrial workers,
their families and communities. 21 minutes
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10. Golden Lands, New Demands
The PATCO strike signals the end of the post-World War II
social compact between labor and capital. In its place, a
new corporate regime ruthlessly replaces full-time "middle
class" union jobs with part-time, temporary, "disposable"
employment. In response, a new organizing mood emerges among
California working people grappling with the effects of the
global economy, spurring struggles for full-time work, living
wages, health care and dignity. 22 minutesTotal Total running
time: Two hours, fifty minutes.
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For price information or to purchase Golden Lands, Working Hands,
click here.
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