Vote on This!

“Two Days, One Night,” film by the Dardenne Brothers, 2014

Even Belgium has proletarian filmmakers.  This quiet movie, starring Marion Cotillard, focuses on a small group of solar workers facing an ethical choice – whether to take a €1,100 bonus and lay a woman off, or refuse the bonus and keep her employed.    Cotillard plays Sandra Bya, who suffers from depression and took a leave of absence because of it, but now is able to work again. 

Union Meeting - Where Work Democracy Happens

After a vote, only 2 of 16 workers want to part with their bonus.  But the vote was swayed by a foreman who threatened that if she was kept on, others would be laid-off.  So the owner-manager said another vote could be held.  As a result, Sandra has to lobby her co-workers for two days and one night before the second vote on Monday to convince them that she should stay.

The first thing that strikes you is that, barring work at a co-op, no worker is ever asked to vote on anything by a boss at a U.S. company.  The closest U.S. workers get to actual democracy related to their job is if they have a union.  Then they can attend meetings, vote on issues and combine with their co-workers in various ways.  Without a union, workers are the subject of a lenient dictatorship or a harsh one, partly subject to labor laws, the kind of laws occasionally enforced.

Do workers in Belgium have more rights on the job?  While I could find no legal requirement for managers to ‘consult’ with employees on issues this small, it is quite possible that it could happen.  Labor is socially and legally stronger in Belgium than in the U.S., even in small towns like Seraing, near Liege. These workers had been working 3 hours a week extra to make up for the missing worker, and not all workers love overtime.  So it is quite reasonable that the boss left this difficult choice to his workforce. 

Sandra gets the addresses or phone numbers of each co-worker and visits or calls them over the course of the weekend.  And this voyage through the streets, shops, houses and apartments of Seraing reveals the lives of her co-workers.  Some agree, some cannot.  They for the most part politely discuss the issue with her, as all of them could be in her position, even if they don’t agree.  Only once is she assaulted by a young contract worker, who knocks over his own father in anger, then drives off in his tricked-out car.  Another female co-worker is roughly grabbed by her husband for even discussing the issue, and she resolves to leave him after that.  He wanted the money to fix their new pool wall.  You get to peek into the small lives of everyone – African, Arab, white – with their small children, cramped quarters and side jobs. 

Sandra still suffers from the after-affects of depression, so getting out of bed and begging for a job, even with the constant encouragement of her husband, a greasy spoon cook, is daunting.  But she makes it to the last person on the list late Sunday night.

Does she get rehired?  Well, in a U.S. film, she probably would have, but this is reality, not Norma Rae.  Nevertheless what the film shows is that fighting back and relying on your co-workers is not a losing strategy.  “Solidarity’ is a word and practice barely ever used anymore, as the labor movement is under assault everywhere in the world.  Sticking your neck out for a fellow worker is frowned upon in the new hard-edged coldness of a neo-liberal world.  But people still do it.

The Dardenne brothers have made non-commercial films for years, using hand-held cameras and real light, starting with documentaries.  They use mostly non-professional or unknown actors and friends as technical staff, keeping their town as their only shooting location.  They have an exclusive focus on proletarians, immigrants, the unemployed and the homeless.  The choice of Cotillard is rare.  She was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress in this absolutely realistic performance – a first for a Dardenne film. 

Athens, GA

Red Frog

February 17, 2018