"The first camera in film history was pointed at a factory, but a hundred years later it can be said that the factory has hardly attracted the camera but rather rejected it. The labor and workers' film has not become one of the main film genres, the space in front of the factory remained a secondary stage." (Harun Farocki)

"Farocki has examined films for a year on the search for variations of the subject of 'a workforce leaving the workplace': workforces can be found in documentary, industrial and propaganda films, in newsreels and fictional films. 'Die Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik' shows scenes from films made by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Fritz Lang, Slatan Dudow, Klaus Wildenhahn, D.W. Griffith, Hartmut Bitomsky and many more. We see pictures of strikes, conflicts between striking workers and strike breakers, evictions and factory occupations. We meet the 'industrial reserve army', see labor struggles that resemble civil wars, and witness bold wage theft." (Ulrich Kriest)