American Dream

American Dream (1990) 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 (P-9) 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...