UNION WOMEN, UNION POWER: FROM THE SHOPFLOOR TO THE STREETS

This film project came out of a process which started about a year ago when we, as young women in our organization, were asked to play more of a leadership role in our CLUW chapter. We had several conversations where we thought about, what is the history of CLUW? why was it important to have a gender analysis for the labor movement and a class analysis for the women and gender liberation movements, when CLUW was founded and why is it still important now? We thought about what big questions lay before us and what experiences we should learn from. We decided that we needed to think about what types of projects we could work on that would begin to help us think about what it means to be the future of the labor movement and how we can continue the fights of our sisters before us. And we wanted to start in our city, Philadelphia, with women who have been on the front lines of major fights, in our city, and whose experiences we need to understand, whose analysis we need to incorporate as we think about what we are going to do tomorrow, 6 months from now, 5 years from now, 30 years from now. With humility, love and deep commitment to building a better world we share with you this film to start a conversation.

We never made a film before and so we sought out some essential support from film makers in our city with a conscious. We learned a tremendous amount from this project. We also received funds from the Berger-Marks Foundation as well as from the HPAE-Staff Union to make this film possible.  One of our main motivations of creating this film was really to start a dialogue, first by getting the opportunity to interview this group of fierce and inspiring women, and also to start a dialogue more broadly, a dialogue that is going to actually carry beyond this film.

FEATURING (in alphabetical order): Patty Eakin: President, Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals; Corean Halloway: UNITE HERE Hotel and Foodservice Workers Local 274; Gwen Ivey: President, American Postal Workers Union Philadelphia Local; Evette Jones: Staff Representative & Community Engagement Coordinator, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 3; Margarita Padin: Carpenter Local Union 8

PRODUCERS AND PROJECT DIRECTORS: Dina Yarmus, UNITE HERE Hotel and Foodservice Workers Local 274 Sandra Jeong-In Lane, Health Professionals and Allied Employees, AFT DIRECTOR: Christian Filippone; CINEMATOGRAPHY: Michael Toland MUSIC BY: Patrick Lamborn