Silkwood is the story of some American workers. They happen to work in a KerrMcGee nuclear plant in Oklahoma, making plutonium fuel rods for nuclear reactors. But they could just as easily be working in a southern textile mill (there are echoes of Norma Rae), or on an assembly line, or for a metropolitan public school district. The movie isn’t about plutonium, it’s about the American working class. Its villains aren’t monsters; they’re organization men, labor union hotshots, and people afraid of losing their jobs.
