PRIMETIME LABOR TV

Saturday, Sept. 4 - 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on cable channel CAN TV21

As families across Chicago celebrate this Labor Day weekend, there will be one place on local television where working people will tell their own stories. Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV) and the producers of the CAN TV series Labor Beat present Primetime Labor tv, a showcase of workers' struggles in Chicago and around the country. Primetime Labor tv will run Saturday, Sept. 4 from 6 to 11 p.m. on cable channel CAN TV21 in the City of Chicago.

"Primetime Labor tv points to the need for regular TV programming that gives the workers' view instead of the view of big corporations," says Larry Duncan, co-producer of Labor Beat.

Primetime Labor tv will be hosted by Labor Beat co-producer William Jenkins, Teamsters for a Democratic Union member, and Clif Brown, co-host of the WLUW radio show Labor Express. Primetime Labor tv includes two full-length documentaries, and several short videos that highlight ongoing labor stories in the Midwest. The featured documentaries are:

The Chicago television premiere of Out of the Darkness, about the United Mine Workers directed by Bill Davis and Barbara Kopple, Oscar-winning director of Harlan Country, USA, and Wild Man Blues. The Uprising of '34, a look at the 1934 Southern textile workers' strike, directed by George Stoney, Judith Helfand, and Susanne Rostock.

The video shorts will include the following subjects, among others: The eviction of homeless people from Lower Wacker Drive. The Tool and Engineering strike of steelworkers in Pilsen. Construction workers' rank and file rebellion at McCormick Place. Midwest labor support for the Detroit newspaper strike. A new music video by the Chicago punk band The Strike.

CAN TV gives every Chicagoan a voice on cable television by providing training, equipment, facilities, and channel time to local residents and groups. CAN TV's local, non-commercial cable channels 19, 21, 27, 36 and 42 reach 385,000 cable households in Chicago. Labor Beat runs Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. and Fridays at 4:30 p.m. on cable channel CAN TV21 in Chicago.