MATEWAN (UNITE HERE FUNDRAISER)

Join us to fundraise for the Unite Here Local 8 workers at the Embassy Suites! Workers have been striking since June 18th while fighting for a new union contract that includes year-round healthcare coverage, protections from ICE, fair raises, and a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels. This is the longest hotel strike in Seattle history! Stand in solidarity with Local 8. One job should be enough! Donate to the strike fund directly here: https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/4irgxeme6nod

Written and directed by John Sayles, this wrenching historical drama recounts the true story of a West Virginia coal town where the local miners’ struggle to form a union rose to the pitch of all-out war in 1920. When Matewan’s miners go on strike, organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper, in his film debut) arrives to help them, uniting workers white and black, Appalachia-born and immigrant, while urging patience in the face of the coal company’s violent provocations. With a crackerjack ensemble cast—including James Earl Jones, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, and Will Oldham—and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Haskell Wexler, MATEWAN taps into a rich vein of Americana with painstaking attention to local texture, issuing an impassioned cry for justice that still resounds today.