Paper short abstract:

Labor struggle documentaries produced by workers themselves in Spain are characterised by co-authorship,polyphony,feminization of voices among others as we analyse in Númax presents (1980), Iguazú effect (2003), Coca-cola struggle (2016), Hotel Exploitation (2018)

Paper long abstract:

The use of cinema as a tool for the continuation of the labor struggle, that is, produced by the workers themselves, dates back to the first decades (ie.Passaic workers [1926,USA], Cinema du Peuple [1913,France], anarchist CNT film collectivization [Catalonia, 1936], CGT-PCF cinematographic sections in France, etc)

In Spain, the production of labor struggle documentaries has been intermittent but it left several cornerstone films that stablish a film-struggle tradition from and for the workers themselves that amends traditional productions: co-authorship, polyphony , feminization of voices, integration of the struggle in everyday life and revelation of the structures of exploitation.

We have made four historical soil pit in order to choose the sample: The first of these films was produced with the resistance box of the workers of the Númax company in post-Franco reconversion [Númax presents (Jordà, 1980)], the second in the middle of the neoliberal decades of privatization of strategic sectors such as the communication infrastructure by Sintel [The Iguazú effect (Ventura, 2003)]; the third reveals the courage of the workers opposing a multinational in the era of radical post-crisis deregulation [Coca-cola in struggle (Cisquella, Ventura, 2016)]; and the last one reveals the fight against cleaning subcontractors in an tourism focus economy [Hotel Exploitation (Cisquella, 2018)].

These films reveal, in addition to specific discursive and aesthetic strategies, the precarious workers will to represent themselves during the struggle when they are defending their rights and putting in crisis a system that excludes them economically and from its visual representations.