From the Spring 2018 issue of UNCG Research Magazine
A homemade pan of lasagna saved his documentary.
For nine years, Department of Media Studies Professor Matthew Barr spent weekends traveling to Tar Heel, North Carolina. There he filmed “Union Time – Fighting for Workers’ Rights,” about the 16-year struggle of workers to organize the world’s largest pork processing plant.
Shortly after their victory, Barr’s project unexpectedly ran into trouble. He had cultivated relationships with Smithfield Packing Co. slaughterhouse employees and United Food and Commercial Workers organizers, but one of his primary interview subjects and a leader in the fight suddenly didn’t want to be filmed anymore.
It took Barr’s culinary talents to win her over.
As Barr had gotten to know the workers, he learned that she liked a dish that happened to be one of his favorites. “I made a big pan of lasagna and drove it down to the union headquarters,” he says. “I understood the personal pressure that these workers were under. I wanted to show that I cared about them, and that it wasn’t ‘just a story.’”
The personal approach paid off. She resumed her participation in the film and, thanks to her influence and Barr’s persistence, others stepped forward too.
Barr trimmed 170 hours of footage into what he calls “86 minutes of oral history and documentary” for the film’s premiere at UNCG in 2016. The final product, narrated by actor and activist Danny Glover, explores what Barr calls a “David versus Goliath” story.
