American Dream is a cinéma vérité documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple and co-directed by Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, and Lawrence Silk. The film recounts an unsuccessful strike in the heartland of America against the Hormel Foods corporation. The film is centered on unionized meatpacking workers at Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota between 1985 and 1986. Hormel had cut the hourly wage from $10.69 to $8.25 and cut benefits by 30 percent despite posting a net profit of $30 million. The local union opposed the cut, but the national union, the United Food and Commercial... Workers, disagrees with their strategy. The local union is shown hiring a freelance strike consultant, Ray Rogers, who comes in with charts, graphs and promises of a corporate campaign to draw national press attention. Rogers delivers in the short term, but, it is not enough to defeat opposition from Hormel management and the UFCW international union. Soon, despite the efforts of a seasoned negotiator sent by the parent union, the company has locked out the workers and hired replacement workers, leading to a series of violent conflicts amongst members of the community.
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| Release date: | 1990 |
| Directed by: | Barbara Kopple, Cathy Caplan |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 98 Minutes |
| Producer: | Arthur Cohn, Barbara Kopple |
| Editor: | Cathy Caplan, Tom Haneke, Larry Silk |
| Music by: | Michael Small |
| Cinematography: | Peter Gilbert, Kevin Keating, Hart Perry, Mark Peterson, Mathieu Roberts |