Shift Change is a documentary film by veteran award-winning filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin. It tells the little known stories of employee owned businesses that compete successfully in today’s economy while providing secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces.

With the long decline in US manufacturing and today’s economic crisis, millions have been thrown out of work, and many are losing their homes. The usual economic solutions are not working, so some citizens and public officials are ready to think outside of the box, to reinvent our failing economy in order to restore long term community stability and a more egalitarian way of life.

Featured in the film is the Mondragón Cooperative: Begun in the 1950s, the Mondragón co-ops have transformed a depressed area of Spain into one of the most productive in Europe with a high standard of living and an egalitarian way of life. These co-ops produce computer chips, high tech industrial machinery, household appliances, and many other products. They are owned and managed by their workers. Seeing the achievements of the Mondragón helps to overcome the idea—widespread in North America—that worker run cooperatives can only exist on the economic fringe.

Day Screening – 11am to 1:30pm
Gompers Room, AFL-CIO
815 16th Street, NW

Evening Screening – 7pm to 9:30pm
Landmark E Street Cinema
555 11th Street, NW

$10 suggested donation for evening, to benefit cooperatives recovering from Hurricane Sandy. The event includes a special Q&A with filmmakers MARK DWORKIN & MELISSA YOUNG.

RSVP and/or purchase tickets for either screening here!

Co-sponsored by: Democracy Collaborative, Mondragon USA, National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), Institute for Policy Studies, Taylored Commmunications, Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO, DC Labor Film Fest, DC Metro Labor Council, New Economy Working Group, New American Foundation, United Steelworkers (USW), NCB Financial Group, American Small Business Coalition (ASBC), Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, (BALLE), Credit Union National Association (CUNA), Blue-Green Alliance, Coop DC, Organizing Neighborhood Equity, DC.