Bunch of pissed off hillbilly's who I couldn't understand 3/4 of the time. Some cool shots though.

An excellent documentary that takes the side of human beings over and against institutions like labor unions and the government. I love the way Kopple brings in the music of these people, showing how they carry on an oral tradition from decades of miners through song.

The fact that they seemed to have their cameras everywhere and little editing was done made this better, and more "real". This factor especially came into play during the standoffs and whenever they approached that guys truck. The whole movie was very informative in shedding some light on coal mining which I really have never paid attention to even though it probably affects my life more than i realize. They could have cut down on the crooning a little bit, just got annoying after awhile.

dull and shamelessy biased. i missed the first half hour.

At turns shocking and infuriating. About as effective as a biased documentary can be, as it's pretty clear that the bias is justified.

What I learned from this movie: coal dust does not cause disease. Wait...wha? Capitalism at its finest.

Fantastic documentary. One-sided for sure but it shows that one side very, very well. The method of presentation, no narration, very few statistics shown onscreen, keeps the viewer in the moment and on the edge of their seat. When I first saw the guns I felt more scared than I ever had in any horror movie.

Fuck the bourgeoisie.

I don't look like or speak like these people. I don't live in a town like theirs. But this is the America I'm proud to live in. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the movie was that it treated the strikers with respect. It didn't make them caricatures or "yokels". There was a kind of folksy empathy at work here that drew me in, and made me relate to these people. The, virtually unedited, standoff between the strikers and the union busters ("mediated" by the reluctant Sheriff) was incredible.

Yes it's biased and sides with the miners but it's open and honest about it. Plus you'd need to be pretty retarded to not be sympathetic to entire families who have, for generations, been exploited. It's heart breaking to see these people fight an uphill battle so hard and for so long over something that is such an obvious moral outrage.

I live in Kentucky, where this movie was filmed, very good documentry about the state.

A one-sided view to be sure, but really, how can you be AGAINST unionizing? The story is riveting and makes a good companion piece to Matewan. The film does get a bit confusing at the end, after the main strike ends and then there's apparently some additional strikes and some sort of disagreement with another organization. But that's just the last 10 minutes, the other 90 are very engrossing. I particularly enjoyed all those great union songs.

Heart-breaking and provocative.

# 870

Really good documentary about the struggles of unionization, even in 70's fighting for basic rights. The documentary may seem one sided but that's only because it's pretty damn hard to side with oil companies who run company towns, use violent tactics, and have no regard for their workers' safety. It still presents both sides of the conflict and while clearly supporting the workers doesn't hide that some of their actions are wrong or misguided.

Workers of the World Unite

Following striking miners 4 over a year in'73, this reveals a corruption that now almost borders on caricature (unless ur in an outsource country), as well as humanizing the workers' unending struggle against coporate greed 4 every 1 of the slightest benefits most of us now take 4 granted. Corporate think-tanks have completely tarnished the image of unions since73, but this is a loud reminder that any present-day distance we now enjoy from cruel & inhumane conditions would not exist w/out them

Very good documentary. It never tries to hide the fact that it's siding with the miners, and as a result it paints an extremely one-sided picture. But that's okay, because the situation it's depicting is an extremely one-sided issue. Of course, the effectiveness of unions is a debatable question, but I don't see how anyone could come out of this movie not feeling that the miners were doing the right thing.