Laborfest: Films Ironeaters and Silicosis

Ironeaters (85 min.) Bangladesh by Shaheen Dill-Riaz
The Ironeaters is a beautiful prize-winning film about the workers in the ship dismantling industry. This industry, which now employs three million workers, has replaced the jute textile industry which was destroyed by the IMF and World Bank in order to eliminate competition to the international chemical companies.

The workers in Ironeaters face a brutal exploitation at 70 cents a day, and deadly health and safety conditions, which destroy their bodies and their lives. This non-union industry, with contractors pushing the workers to get the job done regardless of the costs, and they are deadly as they disfigure many of the workers. The systemic poverty perpetrated by the contractors drives these workers to desperation. This is the first film to show the workers in this industry and the work they do as “the rope carriers go home without a penny of wages.”
http://www.eisenfresser-film.de/Eisenfresser.html
http://www.lemmefilm.de/

Silicosis (45 min.) 2009 Turkey
by Ethem Özgüven, Petra Holzer, Selçuk Erzurumlu
At one end of the chain of distribution, there are the popular blue jeans while on the other end are the unregistered workshops. The workers who make these jeans have contracted life threatening lung diseases. The expensive stonewashed jeans shine while the worker’s lives fade away from their dangerous work.
See also:
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm