Liebe Mutter, mir geht es gut (1972)

Alfred Schefczyk, originally an upholsterer and a semi-skilled locksmith, goes to West Berlin in 1967 to find work there. At the time, the Berlin state government was recruiting workers from West Germany to make up for the exodus from Berlin. Schefczyk is single and shares a room with a colleague in a workers’ hostel. At the metalworking plant in Wedding where he works as a transport worker, pressure becomes noticeably greater as the first major economic crisis hits. A foreman reprimands Schefczyk for the way he works and rejects his suggestions for improvements. The works council protests against the relocation of a department to West Germany—a move that company management had not even mentioned until recently. The production quotas for piecework are to be raised. In addition, the rent for the rather modest rooms in Schefczyk’s hostel is to be increased drastically. The workers discuss what to do about both the pressure at work and the rent increase. Eventually, they launch a spontaneous strike against the new piecework conditions, but management brushes it aside. A supervisor who stood up for his colleagues and went to speak to the plant manager on their behalf is dismissed. Schefczyk, who had initially dismissed his colleague Bruno’s union activities with skepticism, even outright rejection, as mere talk, shifts somewhat from his wait-and-see stance on industrial action and tries to put together a petition against the company’s measures. But this proves difficult: most people wanted to sign only “once more others” had signed. At first, Schefczyk thinks he has had enough of Berlin and should return to West Germany, but by the end of the film he writes to his mother after all, telling her that he is doing well and that he soon has prospects of earning more money and getting a better apartment...