Work Videos - The Documentary Network

Permanently Temporary: The Truth About Temp Labor

Documentary.net staff — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 18:29:27 +0000

Temp labor is one of the fastest growing industries in the US. Increasingly, temp workers are part of a business strategy to keep costs down and profits high. From mega-retailers to mom-and-pop shops, temps are hired to do some of the hardest and most dangerous jobs. While more and more of the American workforce is comprised of temporary workers, they're largely hidden from public view. Many of these workers stay silent, often having their livelihoods threatened if they speak out. Wanting to get a glimpse of this invisible workforce, VICE News traveled across the country, scouring warehouses, temp agencies, and temp towns in search of the people, who make our world of same day delivery possible.

Dreamwork China – New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers

Documentary.net staff — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:08:16 +0000

In the suburbs of Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, young workers talk about their lives, existences built on a precarious balance between hope, struggles and wishes for the future. Around them activists and NGOs strive to give sense and meaning to words like rights, dignity and equity. Dreamwork China is a multimedia project aimed at giving voice to the new generation of Chinese migrant workers. This short video is an excerpt from the full length documentary (55 min) directed by Tommaso Facchin and Ivan Franceschini

Child Slaves

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:27:55 +0000

There are at least 8.4 million child slaves in the world today. Nearly two million of these are forced to work as prostitutes, while almost half a million are child soldiers. But the largest proportion of child slaves - more than five million - are held as forced labour. In some countries, these child slaves are simply juvenile victims of a thriving adult slave culture, but in other countries children are bought and sold specifically as child labourers. In this film Rageh Omaar investigates the plight of child slaves in Haiti. They are known as 'restaveks' from the French words 'rester avec', meaning 'to stay with'. This is the practice of poor families giving their children as domestic help to wealthier acquaintances or relatives. As well as taking place within Haiti, this form of slavery can also involve children being sold or trafficked to the US. The documentary exposes the slave traders who lure these children from isolated villages and then sell them to wealthy families.

It's like living in a family, but you're not a part of the family. It's like living in a home that's not your home, because eventually you know they're going to tell you to get out. It's living in fear - fear of the adult and fear of the unknown.

Jean-Robert Cadet, a former restavek

China’s Dirty Secrets

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:46:12 +0000

China's juggernaut economy is the envy of the world, but at what cost to the country's people and environment?China's factories provide low cost products such as computers and cars to the rest of the world. But critics claim such economic progress takes a heavy toll, polluting the country's air, land and rivers. Even though China ordered more than 2,000 factories to be shut down last August due to pollution, inefficiency or unsafe working conditions, the country remains a major polluter. Pollution from factories has poisoned potable water supplies and has even led to deaths among the surrounding populace.

Children in hazardous Jobs

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 08:19:51 +0000

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) warns that a high number of children are still caught in hazardous work. A new report says that some 115 million children, more than half of the 215 million child labourers worldwide, do hazardous work. The report also indicates that the largest proportion of children in hazardous work relative to the overall number of children in the region is in sub-Saharan Africa. But the largest number of children in hazardous work is in Asia. In Pakistan for instance, despite the existence of child labour laws, the fate of children has not improved. The international community says it hopes to eliminate the problem by 2016. Is that realistic? Isn't working, even in hazardous conditions, the least of two evils? Do children in poor countries have other options? Folly Bah Thibault discusses with Susan Gunn, the author of the ILO report on Child Labour in Hazardous Work from Geneva; Marco Manacorda, an economics professor at Queen Mary University of London and researcher at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics from London; and Vandana Shiva, an ecologist and anti-poverty activist from New Delhi, India.

Cocaleros in Bolivia do not Walk – They Fly

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:08:43 +0000

In the Yungas region in Bolivia, jungle and steep cliffs, people do not walk - they fly. These bird men are known as 'cocaleros', coca harvesters. They use ropes to swing across the narrow valleys, suspended from ancient rusting pulleys. It takes just 30 seconds from one side to the other. By foot it would have taken more than an hour. It is almost a form of public transport, there are about twenty cables strung across the valley. All day long, people and goods fly across the river 200 meters below.

The Colour of Beauty

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 06 May 2011 05:14:54 +0000

Renee Thompson is trying to make it as a top fashion model in New York. She's got the looks, the walk and the drive. But she’s a black model in a world where white women represent the standard of beauty. Agencies rarely hire black models. And when they do, they want them to look “like white girls dipped in chocolate.” The Colour of Beauty is a shocking short documentary that examines racism in the fashion industry. Is a black model less attractive to designers, casting directors and consumers? What is the colour of beauty?

Review: Workingman’s Death (2005)

Oliver Stangl — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:02:45 +0000

Workingmans’s Death by Austrian director Michael Glawogger won several awards for its impressive depiction of work under extreme circumstances and manages to combine social reportage with artistic imagery. The film, consisting of five chapters and an epilogue, covers several professions all over the world: miners in the Ukraine (segment „Heroes“), sulphur workers in Indonesia (segment „Ghosts“), butchers in Nigeria („Lions“), welders in Pakistan („Brothers“) and steel workers in China („Future“).

The conditions of the work shown here are hard to believe for the eyes of a western viewer, but, strange as it may seem, watching this film is for the most part not a depressing experience but a sensual one, even in the most „gory“ segment, „Lions“ which shows the butchering of animals in detail. The chapter „Ghosts“, with its depiction of a volcano from which the workers unearth sulphur seems almost surreal. Director of photography Wolfgang Thaler manages to create images – tableaus really – that are simply poetic, though the viewer never forgets how hard every single working day for the men must be. When the camera follows the miners deep down, the viewer doesn’t believe his eyes: The mine is so narrow that the workers only can crawl on their stomachs. It seems extremely hard to get down the working shafts without a camera, but with a camera – virtually impossible. But somehow Thaler did it. On the surface again, the camera shows a huge Lenin statue, once a symbol for a utopian, working class society. But the revolution failed to create a „workingman’s paradise“. Every office worker complaining about his job today will think twice after seeing those scenes.

When the film was released, some critics complained that it doesn’t show economical correlations. But this was not Glawogger’s goal: he simply shows the workers working and lets them talk about their jobs. And this approach works very well – the images speak for themselves. An important film, beautiful and eerie at the same time.

Watch Workingman's Death on documentary.net:

Working Man’s Death – Part 1 – “Lions”

Working Man’s Death – Part 2 – “Brothers”

Working Man’s Death – Part 3 – “Ghosts”

Working Man’s Death – Part 4 – “Heroes”