Their mechanics were known as the best in the industry, but management wanted to outsource their jobs. After a 444-day worker's strike at Northwest Airlines, 4,000 union members, including Roy, were jobless. So Roy and his daughter Melissa (co-director of The Red Tail with Dawn Mikkelson) journeyed to China to meet the mechanic who now does Roy's job.

The premeditated downfall of Northwest Airlines is a vibrant example of the dangers of our current economic system, and it casts a spotlight on the future of the working class. “Markets are not places where equals meet. Markets are places were millionaires meet homeless workers.” Peter Rachleff, Labor Historian, Macalister College