Town of Widows
Synopsis
In a factory town both sustained and poisoned by big industry, a growing group of widows, workers and family members fight for justice in a system stacked against injured workers.
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Jim is sick of going to funerals. Roger has regular surgeries to keep him alive. Sandy still struggles to pay the bills twenty years after her husband died. Their town is sick, and they want justice.
The General Electric factory in Peterborough gave them good work and took them in like family, but ultimately may be responsible for a lethal legacy of cancer. They talk about the “snowstorms” of asbestos in the plant, the “GE smell” from the toxic soup of chemicals and the workers “dropping like flies” from cancer.
Their opponents are formidable ones. The compensation board is meant to support workers and their families, but it has denied hundreds of workers and widows and left others waiting for decades. General Electric is one of the largest companies in the world and no one, including the government, wants to run them out of town and see workers lose their jobs.
We watch as a town of widows and workers take on their own community, the government, an insurance agency, a multinational company – and see wins.
Runtime
44:18
Nominations
Documentary POV (Point of View), Emerging Filmmaker, Research
Website/Social Media
Creative Team
Director(s)
Natasha Luckhardt, Rob Viscardis
Producer(s)
Natasha Luckhardt (Executive Producer), Rob Viscardis (Creative Producer) and David DeSario (Associate Producer)
Researcher(s)
Steve Cornwell
Production Company
Bread & Roses Creative Productions Inc.