Windham County’s first ever Labor Film Festival, will open on September 6 at 4 p.m. at theLatchis Theater, 50 Main St., in Brattleboro. Running on four Sundays through October 4, the festival will focus on a different theme each week, screening films that show the breadth of the labor movement and address many of the issues facing workers today. Each screening will be followed by a panel discussion, featuring speakers engaged directly in these issues.
The festival opens with a screening of “Partners, “a documentary about the union drive at the Buffalo Starbucks that has grown to nearly 700 Starbucks locations in 40 states, energizing and reshaping the labor movement across the world. The film takes viewers behind the scenes, showing how workers organized in the face of the company’s aggressive and well-funded anti-union attacks.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Casey Moore, one of the leaders of the Buffalo Starbucks drive, as well as worker organizers from Healthy Living in Vermont who are currently fighting for union recognition, labor attorney Catherine Terrell, and Bee Hesselbach of the Vermont State Employees’ Association.
Future festival dates are September 13 (immigrant workers), September 27 (working-class organizing for housing rights), and October 4 (lessons from labor history for today). The festival is sponsored by the Vermont State Employees’ Association and Vermont AFL-CIO.