Film Porto Marghera-The Last Firebrands from Italy

Every July day has Laborfest events, some of which are missing from the red letter listings. This "al fresco" textbook for all of us will teach the importance of a general strike which we need to put an end to the profit motive that is the cause of the budget "crisis" and war. At 7 p.m. at the Oakland Niebyl Proctor Library, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Italy's "Hot Autumn" with a movie about petrochemical workers who took matters into their own hands.

July 24 (Friday) 7:00 PM (Donation) Niebyl Proctor Library - 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland
FilmWorks United International Working Class Film & Video Festival
Porto Marghera-The Last Firebrands (2004) 52 min.
by Manuela Pellarin
40th Anniversary of Italy’s “Hot Autumn.”
A film about petrochemical workers who took matters into their own hands in the giant industrial zone engulfing Venice. Porto Marghera documents autonomous workers and their experiences from the point of view of the worker-activists themselves.
"The mass refusal of literally toxic work forced hours on the job down at the same time as driving wages up. The labour hierarchy that sets white collar against blue, permanent against casual, was attacked by workers insisting on the maximum for everyone. The battle in the factory was linked to working-class life outside through direct appropriation of basic social needs (electricity, housing, food).
Unlike most more or less academic accounts of Italian Operaismo (workerism), which tend to focus on high-profile groups and individual leaders, Porto Marghera documents autonomous worker organization from the point of view of the worker-activists themselves, who talk about their experiences in the film. Many aspects and problems of this phase of class struggle are of immediate relevance today.”

To be followed by a discussion of the strike wave in Italy, sparked by the strike at FIAT’s Mirafiori plant in Turin, that set into motion the “Hot Autumn” and which resulted in nearly a decade of heightened class struggle throughout Italy.
See also:
http://www.after1968.org/index.php/screenings/view/3
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm