Collision Course

47 minutes, 1988 , United States

Producers: California Newsreel, Jigsaw Films, Director: Alex Gibney

Educational Streaming

Colleges, Universities, Government Agencies, Hospitals and Corporations

Streaming licenses for institutional use—ideal for education, training, and research.

1-Year Single Campus Academic Streaming $200.00

One year of embeddable streaming access for a single institution. Includes captioning support, and easy LMS integration. Perfect for courses, workshops, and staff development.

3-Year Single Campus Academic Streaming $350.00

Three years of embeddable streaming access for a single institution. Includes captioning support, and easy LMS integration. Ideal for recurring curriculum use and long-term academic programming.

Life-of-the-File-Format Digital Site License (DSL) $650.00

Includes downloadable .mp4 video and .srt caption files. Permits secure, password-protected streaming via the licensing institution’s distance learning or internal streaming platform for students, faculty, staff, and on-campus researchers. Also includes 5 years of embeddable streaming. Perfect for long-term archiving and flexible institutional access.

Add a DVD to Any License (when available) $50.00

Available to U.S. licensees only. Shipping via USPS Priority Mail and California sales tax (for California customers) will be calculated at checkout.

Community Screening

Short-term use for small groups, organizations, or high school classes (under 100 participants-where no admission is charged).

Flexible options for educators, facilitators, and non-commercial screenings.

7-Day On-Demand Group Rental $75.00

Streamed via a secure screening page to a single purchaser. For use in a real-time, synchronous group setting, either in person or virtual. Ideal a single discussion, classroom session, or community gathering.

30-Day On-Demand Group Rental $100.00

Streamed via Newsreel.org for use by a single group of up to 100 participants for 30 days. A moderator or instructor will receive a secure URL and password to share with students. Ideal for high school and non-college classes.

Single Course Rental (15 weeks) $150.00

Streamed via Newsreel.org for use by a single course or group of up to 100 participants over a 15-week academic term. A moderator or instructor will receive a secure URL and password to share with students. Ideal for high school and non-college classes.

Add a DVD to Any License (when available) $50.00

Available to U.S. licensees only. Shipping via USPS Priority Mail and California sales tax (for California customers) will be calculated at checkout.

Home Viewing

48-hour personal streaming rental for in-home use only.

For individuals without institutional access.

Home Viewing Rental $20.00

Enjoy a 48-hour streaming rental, beginning at checkout, available through Newsreel.org for personal, at-home use only.

Home viewing is offered as a courtesy for individuals without institutional access. We encourage you to check with your local public library, college campus, or community organization to see if they already hold a viewing license.

By selecting this option, you agree not to show the film in any public, group, or classroom setting.

Add a DVD to Any License (when available) $50.00

Available to U.S. licensees only. Shipping via USPS Priority Mail and California sales tax (for California customers) will be calculated at checkout.

Collision Course traces the dramatic rise and fall of workplace cooperation at Eastern Airlines. In so doing, the film uncovers the deep-seated assumptions which underlie our culture of industrial relations and prevent us from breaking out of our industrial impasse.

Collision Course begins in 1983 with Eastern hurtling towards bankruptcy, beset by years of labor-management hostility, high wage cuts, and a poor service record. An informative history traces this adversarial relationship back to the dawn of the wage system and the rise of scientific management.

When Eastern once again demanded wage cuts, the machinist union responded with a bold counter-proposal reconceiving the traditional "wage bargain" by giving workers both a 25% ownership stake and an unprecedented say in the company. It was the most profound change in labor-management relations in any major American Company.

The results were stunning. Autonomous work teams took over the shopfloor. Wage increases were tied to productivity improvements. Encouraged to use their brains, newly motivated "cost teams" invented ways to save the airline $100 million.

Yet when competitive pressures re-emerged, the innovative agreement was pulled apart by the very people who put it together. In 1986, Eastern was sold to Frank Lorenzo's notoriously anti-union Texas Air and soon thereafter went down in flames. Eastern's rise and fall provides a vital case study of the do's, don'ts, and maybe's of workplace cooperation.

Collision Course is an eloquent statement and sadly accurate portrayal of labor-management relations in America. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't profit enormously from seeing it - production workers, managers, citizens. If it were up to me, I'd project it on a mountainside and have the audio boom over valley and stream.
-- Robert Reich, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

"No American businessman or labor leader can afford to ignore the lessons of this important film. It demonstrates the tremendous potential of workplace cooperation for improving productivity and business performance - and the price paid for neglecting it. An hour of Collision Course is worth volumes of case studies."
-- Adam Smith

"Superb! Clearly gets across the message that workers must have a voice in the management process because it's more democratic and because it unleashes worker initiative and creativity."
--Douglas Fraser, former president, United Auto Workers (UAW)

"This dramatic, eye-opening study of a crucial experiment in labor-management cooperation provides unions and management vital insights into why they work apart and how they can work together."
-- Robert McKersie, Sloan School of Management, M.I.T

"The film presents vivid reminders of the importance of trust and communications in building teamwork and its correlative, productivity, far more effectively than lectures and articles. It clearly tells us we're playing for mortal stakes and we'd better understand the context and control of corporate cultures which are successful and those that are failures. There are lessons here that management, unions, legislators, and ordinary citizens have to take very seriously."
-- Warren Bennis, University of Southern California

Ways to Watch

Educational Streaming

Colleges, Universities, Government Agencies, Hospitals and Corporations.

Community Screening

Short-term use for small groups, organizations, or high school classes (under 100 participants, where no admission is charged).

Home Viewing

48-hour, personal rental for in-home use only, restrictions apply