In the early 1900s, Sylvie Pelletier leaves her family's Colorado mountain cabin to start work at a wealthy mine-owner's manor house and is fascinated by he luxury around her until she discovers the family's philosophy is at odds with the unfair labor practices that built their fortune.

"Fascinating and groundbreaking: a talented young journalist goes undercover to work as a casino labor-union organizer in Florida in this rare, smart look at the ongoing struggle between the haves and the have-nots. Salting is a simple concept--get hired at a non-union company, do the job you were hired to do, and, with the help of organizers on the outside, unionize your coworkers from the inside. James Walsh spent almost three years as a "salt"...

Maya is an illegal alien who has crossed the U.S. border from Mexico to search for her sister Rosa, and to begin a new life. After being reunited, Rosa gets Maya a job with a janitorial service in a large office building. While working, Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro, a muckraking lawyer and union agitator whom the service-workers' union has assigned to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Appalled at the work conditions and unfair...

Union leader Johnny Kovak works his way up the Teamsters trade-union organization and comes under investigation for possible connections with the mafia.

District attorneys Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi work to expose the corrupt and murderous leader of the longshoremen's union

In 1973, when the Brookside coal miners voted for the United Mine Workers union, the Duke Power Company refused it. Barbara Kopple documented the struggle between the miners and the company, causing a big uproar.