Strike Paper

Bruce Campbell is hitting his stride. He’s a reporter at The Times Leader, his hometown paper. That’s where he met his wife, a fellow reporter. They have a little girl who is currently obsessed with Annie, and another one on the way. He finally scraped enough together to build that house. He seems to be pretty good at delivering all that is asked of him–by his job, by his friends, and most importantly by his family.
Enter Cap Cities, a monster publishing corporation. They just bought The Times Leader and they’re hoping to flip this hometown rag into a moneymaker, but to do that they have to dismantle the powerful unions that are the bedrock of this town.
That leaves Bruce with a dilemma-–go on strike with the rest of the paper, or become a scab to provide for his family.

A scab isn’t a pretty sight any way you look at it. In Wilkes- Barre, it’s no different. This was a proud coal mining town, you can trace that back to Bruce’s great-grandfather, and the union has always been its heart. So when Bruce decides to cross the picket line and work for Cap Cities and the new Times Leader, his friends, his father, hell, the whole town turns against him.
Feeling like the red-headed stepchild in all of this, Bruce’s daughter Tracy becomes hell-bent on getting the lead role in a local production of Annie. His wife Gloria is left to deal with her new pregnancy and the absence of her husband to his demanding job, one she knows well having been a hotshot reporter in her day.

Bruce is oblivious. He loses himself in a bottle of booze and a political scandal unfolding before him: Congressman “Dapper” Dan Flood has been accused of taking bribes as head of the appropriations committee, and Bruce discovers he’s in the pocket of local mobsters, bringing lucrative jobs to his hometown for kickbacks. When Bruce thinks he’s broken the story wide open, it turns out the town can care less–they only care that the congressman has been taking care of them.

That leaves Bruce with a realization—taking care of your own is all that’s important. But when he turns around to be there for his family, he realizes Tracy got the part of Annie and didn’t tell him, his father has disowned him, and his wife is going into labor 5 weeks early.
Bruce sacrifices his dignity for his family, and what does he get in return? A demotion from the paper, a drinking problem, and divorce papers.

How it ends: Bruce quits his job, holding on to a few shreds of dignity, and he cashes in his pension to pay for Tracy’s braces. He goes back to bartending to spend more time with Tracy during the days. She gets the role of Annie, and the ending image is her singing the incredibly apt Maybe, the spotlight bouncing off her new braces during a montage of Bruce in his new apartment, bathing his baby boy.