For nearly four decades, director Ken Loach has been fighting the system on film and TV. This man of the people with a political and social conscience has worked consistently, exposing stories of social injustice. Most famously, perhaps, was Cathy Come Home in 1966, a BBC Wednesday Play that led to increased awareness about homelessness and led to Shelter, the charity of the homeless, becoming a major force.

Then came Kes, the gritty film about a boy and a kestrel set in the industrial North. Other subjects he's dealt with include the shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland (Hidden Agenda), domestic violence (Ladybird Ladybird) and the Spanish Civil War (Land And Freedom).

His award-winning work is a favourite among European critics and festival audiences so the idea of Loach going to make a movie in Hollywood, not a place renowned for making political statements or socially-aware pictures, is difficult to take in. One observer was moved to compare Loach working in America with acclaimed Irish playwright Samuel Beckett writing for Crossroads. Fear not, he has not sold out. Bread And Roses is a very Ken Loach film, the story of poorly-paid, badly-treated immigrant cleaners in Los Angeles who band together in a Justice For Janitors campaign. Ironically, the production team had to deal with the demands of the heavily-unionist film industry.

"The film unions were pretty good really," recalls the softly-spoken Loach. "We went to them some months in advance, explained what we wanted and they did their best to be helpful. Obviously they are set up for big budget films which, in this exercise, was not the case. The teamsters were the trickiest because they epitomise the old-fashioned guild rather than a union. There was a stage we had ten drivers and nine vehicles. I never quite discovered what the tenth driver did. They also wanted private loos when there were plenty available in buildings nearby. That was the exception really."

Loach didn't have to change his documentary-style approach to film-making, a lot of hand-held cameras and natural light. "In the beginning they were a little nonplussed because what we try to do is minimise the business of film-making whereas they try to maximise it because your status there arises from how many vehicles you have on the road. We went down in their estimation at the start because we were a small film, but we were learning things from them. You have to go in with a spirit of co-operation. You can't go as a know-all."

The actors, found through casting sessions in both the US and Mexico, had more difficulties with the authorities. "Quite a lot had problems going in or going back to see their relatives or children, just trying to get back in the country," he says.

The story was inspired by a real life Justice For Janitors campaign a decade ago. He uses real footage of riot police attacking people on a peaceful march in Bread And Roses. Some of the actual marchers appear as fictional protesters in the film.

Screenwriter and former human rights lawyer Paul Lavery, who worked with Loach on Carla's Song and My Name Is Joe, heard about the campaign while studying in LA in the early 1990s. "I suppose at the back of your mind there's always the feeling it would be good to do a film in America at some point because it sets a challenge. I thought if we were going to do it then let's do it about these folks," says Loach.

The setting may be the US but the themes are universal and topical, given the continuing debate about immigrants, who provide cheap labour and are easy to exploit. He thinks parallels can be drawn with our politicians and the way "they use words they know have dark resonances, trying to build on people's fears that they are being done down or being taken advantage of".

As a film takes a year or more out of his life, it's essential to tackle a subject he cares about, or it becomes a very cynical exercise. If the work changes society, so much the better. "It's quite satisfying to make an intervention or contribution to whatever public argument is going on," he says.

Just as you won't find him helming a big budget mainstream movie, you won't find him directing a football film despite his interest in the beautiful game. Loach, a director of Bath City, says: "A match has its own rhythm and a film has a different rhythm."

His next project is close to his heart - directing a Party Political Broadcast for the Socialist Alliance party. He appears to be no great admirer of the current Government and no longer belongs to the Labour Party. Not so much a case of him resigning as the party giving him up. "All they want is your Visa number. They don't want local parties, don't want resolutions or party conferences," he says.

* Bread And Roses (15) is showing in cinemas from today.

Published: Friday, April 27, 2001