Norma Rae (1979) on Netflix
Norma Rae Webster works the line at a cotton mill where conditions have damaged her family's health. A union organizer arrives from New York, and she joins the union drive.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.3/1014,213 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Norma Rae Webster works in a cotton mill, a job that has taken too much of a toll on her family's health. She is raising two children alone, by different fathers, one dead and the other negligent, and she has flings with other men to ease her loneliness and boredom. Sonny Webster, a divorced former co-worker with a daughter, asks her out and proposes marriage, and she accepts. Reuben Warshowsky, a union organizer from New York, speaks to the crew, and Norma Rae joins the effort to unionize the shop.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Norma Rae (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The plot is based on events from the life of textile worker and union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton, who fought the J.P. Stevens Textiles mill in her hometown Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina; the scene where Norma Rae writes "UNION" on cardboard and stands on a table is closely based on a 1978 protest by Sutton.
- Although Sutton was fired from her job, the mill was unionized and she went to work as an organizer for the textile union; in 2003 the Stevens textile mill closed, along with hundreds of other factories across the Carolinas, as US textile manufacturing moved offshore to countries like China and Mexico.
- In December 2017 it was announced that Norma Rae was to be adapted into a stage musical, with singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash set to compose the score.
