There was a time in Hawai'i history, decades past now, when the struggle between labor and management was a bare-fisted war marked by bitter strikes. It was an era suited for a man such as Jack Hall, a tough champion of working men and women for more than 30 years.

But even though he established the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Hawai'i, which gave workers a strength they never had before, Hall's contributions have been forgotten by all but the oldest of Hawai'i's union veterans.

A new locally produced documentary — "Jack Hall: His Life and Times" — hopes to change that.

"The current generation doesn't really appreciate who he was," said Chris Conybeare, the film's executive producer. "They have the benefits of what he did, but they are not aware of what he used to be. That was one of the reasons we did this project. We thought he was terribly important to Hawai'i history."

The one-hour documentary, which airs tonight on PBS Hawai'i, was produced by the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu, where Conybeare has created similar programs for 20 years.

Conybeare was able to draw on the center's huge film and video archive, which includes unedited material never before seen. The ILWU headquarters in San Francisco also provided more than 1,500 photographs.

Hall's family turned over home movies from holiday and birthday celebrations. In one of those home movies, one of Hall's closest friends shows up — then-Gov. John. A. Burns.

"A lot of the stuff will resonate really well with people who do remember those days," Conybeare said. "They will see faces of people they knew when they were young."

The documentary includes interviews with former workers, now in their 70s and 80s, former union colleagues, labor historians and Hall's children. They offer insight into a fading history.

"There are very few people who remember Jack Hall personally or who could tell you about him," said Joy Chong-Stannard, the film's producer, director and editor. "But if you were a contemporary of his, you knew the importance of Jack Hall."

Hall arrived in the Islands in the mid-1930s and immediately began organizing. He took a union reviled by conservative lawmakers in the 1940s and not only made it respectable in the 1950s and '60s, he made its support a must-have endorsement in any political contest.

Under Hall, workers learned they could confront management and prevail.

In 1949, he helped workers shut down the docks for six months. Hawai'i had never experienced anything like that. Police had to escort nonstrikers to their jobs, walking them past union members armed with clubs.

By the time he left Hawai'i for the West Coast in 1969, Hall was held in respect — some even said affection — by those who had initially feared and resented him, Chong-Stannard said.

"I think the honesty of Jack Hall rises to the top of things," she said. "He breaks the unfortunate stereotype that labor leaders have. He was well respected by the people who did not necessarily agree with him."

Hall died young, though. A hard drinker, he was suffering from Parkinson's disease and diabetes when he had a massive stroke in 1971 in San Francisco. He was 56.

The documentary touches on Hall's demons as well as his triumphs.

He had a difficult childhood: His mother committed suicide when he was young, and his father was abusive. When he graduated from high school at the height of the Great Depression, he left home to become a merchant seaman. On a voyage to Asia, he saw colonialism, poverty and racial inequality.

Local playwright Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, who wrote the script for the documentary, said Hall was motivated by the world he saw at home and abroad.

"He saw what happened to a lot of working-class people when the stock market crashed," she said. "Then he became a sailor and went to different places in the world. He says that he saw how poor people suffered at the hands of rich people."

That served as a lasting motivation for Hall, who changed the economic structure of the Islands, Kneubuhl said.

"He was a real humanitarian," she said. "That's what was behind all of his work and all of his involvement in the labor movement. I think he saw trade unions as a way for people to improve their lives and the lives of their families."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.