The Battle of Homestead Foundation proudly presents a FREE Zoom panel discussion of American Factory, 2020 Oscar-winning Best Feature Documentary, with film directors Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, Braddock filmmaker Tony Buba, and Dr. Louis Picard, director of University of Pittsburgh’s Public Administration Program.

Please note: Upon registration for this event, participants are provided details pertaining to how to access the film, a discussion guide and Zoom link including password. Participants are asked to view the film ahead of the discussion.

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American Factory opens in 2014 when a major Chinese glass manufacturer refits a closed GM auto plant in Moraine, Ohio, and hires several hundred ex-plant employees to work under Chinese managers. Clashes between labor and management soon emerge, mirroring the growing breakdown in America’s manufacturing sector over the last decade.

Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s new production company Higher Ground, in conjunction with Participant Media and distributed by Netflix, American Factory was directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, veteran documentarians with a five-decade list of social-issue film credits that include Union Maids, Seeing Red, Methadone: An American Way of Dealing, Growing Up Female and Raises Not Roses: The Story of the 9to5 Movement.

“Having the directors speak to us in real time is what makes this program so special,” says John Haer, Battle of Homestead Foundation president. “They saw the process unfold over several years and were able to interpret that in tandem with events happening in the world outside the factory.”

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For the May 27 panel discussion, Bognar and Reichert will be joined by Braddock filmmaker Tony Buba, whose oft-awarded body of work has chronicled Western Pennsylvania working-class life, and Dr. Louis A. Picard, director of the Public Administration Program at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert in international economic and social development.

“America’s factory and warehouse networks are in crisis, and so much of the problem lies in the how we address the basic rights not just of workers but of consumers at the other end of the supply chain,” says Rosemary Trump, Battle of Homestead Foundation board member and former Pennsylvania AFL-CIO vice president. “American Factory has a lot to tell us about the stark future that millions of Americans may encounter in their workplace and their daily lives.”

The Battle of Homestead Foundation is an educational nonprofit promoting Western Pennsylvania’s vibrant industrial and labor history starting with the 1892 Homestead Steel Strike and connecting with current labor issues involving economics, the environment, healthcare, racism and other social concerns.

“The true foundation of American economic security is the economic security of American workers,” says John Haer. “Every occupational sector is undergoing rapid change, and American Factory tells that story with clarity and insight.”