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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

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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 |

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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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