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REVIEWS =

pioneering work in solidarity
the martyrs in Ch

NOW AVAILABLE AT PEOPLE’S CO-OP BOOKSTORE

May Day and the Marx Sisters

By Hazel Wigdor

Booklet featuring struggles for the eight-hour working day,
and saluting Jenny, Laura and Eleanor Marx for their

of the workers of all lands with
icago 100 years ago.

Only $3

1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X5
Telephone: 253-6442

People’s
Co-op
Bookstore

1391 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X5
Telephone: 253-6442

SPECIAL TITLES
FOR MAY DAY

MAY DAY: A short
history of the
international workers’

holiday.
By Philip Foner. $9.95
(paperback)

$19.95

(hardcover)

. MAY DAY AND THE MARX SISTERS.

By Hazel Wigdor

THE LABOR UNION HANDBOOK.

By Muriel Merkel

$3

(paperback)

regular $19.95

Special May Day price $6.99

(hardcover)

CONCESSIONS AND HOW TO BEAT THEM.

By Jane Slaughter

TAKING CONTROL — A

$8.95

(paperback)

handbook

for trade unionists.

By Mike Freeman

Mail orders add 50 cents postage.
Mail order lists now available.

$9.95

(paperback)

or order from

Vancouver, V5K 125

30 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 30, 1986 —

Available at Co-op Books

A glimpse of centennial
= _ labor history ...

FIGHTING

HERITAGE
Edited By Sean Griffin

e The On-to-Ottawa Trek
e The Corbin Strike
e The Battle of
Ballantyne Pier
e The Post Office sitdown

e The story of the
Tribune

$9.99

Tribune Publishing Co. Ltd.
2681 East Hastings St.

of single unemployed |

SUNG HO. Directed by Ron Howard.
Screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo
Mandel. Starring Michael Keaton, Gedde
Watanabe, Mimi Rogers. At local theatres.

Gung Ho is not your familiar Hollywood
story about people in the movies who travel
to an unnamed country to slaughter a few
dozen terrorists before breakfast, befriend
space aliens camped out in the bedroom
closet, or agonize over whether to take the
Porsche or family yacht in search of the
billion dollar cache of diamonds. But it is a
story that will be familiar to the people who
go to the movies. Written by the same team
that made Spies Like Us, Gung Ho skillfully
applies gentle, sensitve humor to the tragic
reality of plant closings that are destroying
the work forces of whole towns in the U.S.,
and the union busting threatening the exist-
ence of long established labor rights.

Films

~

In the film, the town of Hadleyville is .

going under, after the local auto plant shuts
down. The foreman, played by Michael
Keaton, in a desperate move to save
workers’ jobs, arranges for a Japanese
company to take over the plant. Elation
turns to frustration and an eventual walk-
out, as the workers soon learn they are
expected to adjust to Japanese methods,
which include no union, a 25 per cent pay
cut, and blanket acceptance of the impor-
tance of the company above any personal
needs. The workers are offered an “oppor-
tunity” to work back what they’ve already
lost, that is, their original salaries, if they
manage to produce a phenomenal amount
of cars ina month. The struggle to meet this
deadline, during which one worker is
seriously injured as a result of the speedup,
leads to a confrontation of both cultural
and class values, with the bosses eventually
realizing and acknowledging the humanity
of the workers. There is also a warm, posi-
tive connection which develops, beyond
racial caricatures, as portrayed in the one

SAUVUAUUUNEAAUUUADUUEAUAUENGUOUUALAUEOOUUOESAUUSUAOOUEEUOOEUAAAUOEA LEU ALO EEE

Greetings to.all our Pacific Coast
readers and customers.

Northern Neighbors Magazine ||

(Subscribers now in 81 countries)

Northern Book House

(35 years selling progressive literature by mail)

The flags are flying higher this May Day!

a HNAQOUUUUUUEENEOAUOUOAUUUUUUEEEEUQOUQUOUUUUOEUUUUGUQOQUOGUUUEEUAOOAGUQuUUueeecgagacuuaeecesgngcuieeesegaaaiaactsestaaaeaeennni

SIUUUTTTUEUEUEUTTU TEU T TUTTE

~ bears full responsibility for the sit
There is no mention of the exportife,|

100th Anniversary |
May Day Greeting5 |
to our customers

tr and suppliers
UKRAINSKA KNYHA (Global Imports)

2677 East Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.
Telephone: 253-3032, 253-8642

_ Soviet imports — giftware — magazines — records — confe¢
Clear out sale — 25 per cent off all stock

relationship between Keaton and ont
Japanese managers, played by Geddt
anabe.
Gung Ho, filmed in. Tokyo and
burgh and based on an idea develop
a 60 Minutes segment about the J
owned Nissan auto plant in Smylie:
Messee, never gets into any %
background issues surrounding thé
the auto industry, and current ruthh |
by Japanese-owned auto plants like y
and Honda in Marysville, Ohio toS#°
efforts by the UAW to organize 9
plants. In the film, the workers blame!
selves for the economic failure of the “a

and they try to salvage a system be tid

workers’ jobs abroad in capitalism's"
unrelenting quest for ever cheaper !a00
greater profits. Also, the callous n4# inf
our economic system is presented
“safe” unthreatening form, as a trait P

if

iar to Japanese culture, rather than the
versal symptom of capitalism that It ‘ if
Despite the omissions and overs i
cations of many serious issues, GUNg” 7),
manages to be a positive and uplifting “g)
In a rare move for Hollywood, i
takes sides with U.S. workers 4%
people are indeed more important thal? 3
its. The humor, though at times cH)
used without viciousness or putdow?
the things that draw people togeth ah
shadow their differences. The frie
between Michael Keaton and Gedd® af
tabe (a Japanese-American whose Fg
spent World War II in a domestl¢ "4

ment camp) is touching and develop® i
a sensitivty and intelligence that isa”

ing experience in this era of crud |
i |

|

|

|

;

i

a

Asian films like Year of the Drage
Rambo. Gung Ho doesn’t tell the og
story about U.S. labor, but what it dora)
is expressed with sympathy, dign) a
respect. vl

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