Image Union, episode 0005: Chicago Workers and Their Struggles

Labor/work-focused compilation episode of Image Union, hosted by Studs Terkel. It features several segments from the Illinois Labor History Society, "It's a Living: When I Was a Worker Like LaVerne" by Skip Blumberg and Jane Aaron, "Uno Mas" by Mike Torro, Iris Bruno, and Jose Claudio, "Packingtown U.S.A. by William Adelman," and "Winnie Wright, Age 11" and "Trick Bag" by Kartemquin Films.

0:00Copy video clip URL  End credits to the Dick Cavett show.

0:55Copy video clip URL Advertisement for Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and others…

02:04Copy video clip URL Image Union opening, with introduction by Studs Terkel. This broadcast devoted to Chicago peoples’ work and struggles.

04:09Copy video clip URL Footage of the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937. Footage of steel workers with their wives and children demonstrating for the right to peacefully picket. Uncut voiceover by Sam Leavitt, steel worker organizer. Shows Al Carvey bleeding to death. Illinois Labor History Society.

10:59Copy video clip URL Excerpt from Winnie Wright, Age 11. Winnie’s father, a steel worker, discusses importance of unions. Winnie discusses what she’ll be when she grows up. Winnie’s father tells the family his union may go on strike. Kartemquin Films.

14:52Copy video clip URL Excerpt from When I Was a Worker Like LaVerne. Sal Camodeca, Asst. Manager at Sears catalogue distribution warehouse, discusses employee conditions and suggestion programs with worker LaVerne Reese. From It’s a Living. By Skip Blumberg and Jane Aaron.

20:56Copy video clip URL Uno Mas by Mike Torro, Iris Bruno and Jose Claudio. A fictional account of the struggles a Puerto Rican man faces after arriving in America for the first time.

28:20Copy video clip URL Excerpts from Stock Yards: End of an Era. Documentary about the Union Stockyards, narrated by Studs Terkel. Interviews with F.M. Flynn, Maryellen Roth, George Yirell and others about the old days as European immigrants in the livestock yards.

34:39Copy video clip URL Image Union re-opening.

35:08Copy video clip URL Packingtown, U.S.A., which was produced by William Adelman for the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1969. Discusses the hardships of the European immigrants living in Packingtown, Chicago, a white ethnic ghetto. Covers the meatpackers’ struggle for higher wages and better working conditions in the union strike of 1904.

58:05Copy video clip URL Excerpt from Trick Bag. A Back Porch, Lincoln and Paulina. A group of women discuss race and working conditions in Chicago. Kartemquin Films.

1:02:36Copy video clip URL Tape ends abruptly.