American Dream

American Dream (1989) Documentary. Directed by Barbara Kopple. In the 1980s, a Hormel meat-packing plant in the small town of Austin, Minnesota decided to unilaterally lower the wages of its unionized workers from $10.69 an hour to $8.50 an hour. The union went out on strike, but in the anti-union atmosphere of the Reagan '80s, they stood little chance against the power of management. This movie documents their struggle, and how the management of Hormel slowly wore them down by refusing to negotiate. It's a sad story, and in many ways it's the story of America in the post-Reagan era. Reagan fired all the air-traffic controllers when they went out on strike, and that set the tone for the rest of his presidency. In effect, he broke the unions. Foreign competition may have done the job anyway, but this film shows the agonizing death throes of one union, Local P-9 of the meatpackers' union,  in painful detail. The movie won an Oscar as Best Documentary. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B