Labour & Pop Culture: Documentary on 9-to-5 Movement

Netflix is presently showing a documentary entitled 9to5: The Story of a Movement. This documentary traces the development of the 9 to 5 social movement that began foregrounding unfair working conditions for women office workers in the United States (initially in Boston) in the early 1970s. This movement was the inspiration for the 1980 comedy of the same name (which holds up pretty well and, sadly, is still topical, 40 years later).

One of the narrative arcs of the film explores how the 9 to 5 movement transitions from a social movement into a union (Local 925) as the workers sought to formalize and entrench the gains they had made. This includes following a union organizing campaign (in Cincinnati I think, but it may have been Seattle) through an initial defeat and subsequent victory. It also examines how the attack on labour by US business and government in the 1980s affected Local 925.

-- Bob Barnetson