- About
- People
- Organizations
- Alberta Labour History Institute
- Archive of Social Democracy (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung)
- Archives of Political History and the Trade Unions
- La Asociación Mexicana de Estudios del Trabajo, A.C. (AMET)
- Association of Indian Labour Historians
- Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB)
- BC General Employees Union (BCGEU)
- Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU-K)
- Centre of Cooperation - RUB/IGM
- General Agricultural Workers Union of Ghana (GAWU-TUC)
- Hans-Böckler Foundation
- International Association of Labour History Institutions
- Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr University, Bochum
- Laboratório de Estudos de História dos Mundos do Trabalho (LEHMT)
- Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF)
- Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
- Simon Fraser University (SFU)
- UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
- Union of Professional Health and Care Sector Workers in Nepal (UNIPHIN)
- Countries
- Projects
- Issues and Themes
- Resources
- Contact
Oral Histories
Oral histories of trade unionism are a great way of remembering past struggles of trade unions. They are based on interviews with trade unionists–either life history interviews, in which trade unionists recount their life story and in particular their life in the trade union movement, or specific thematic interviews on a particular aspect of their trade union activities.
Germany
- Knud Andresen, Triumpherzaehlungen. Wie Gewerkschafter ueber ihre Erinnerungen sprechen, Bochum 2014: Historians today consider the 1970s to be a period of "social change of revolutionary quality". This represents a socio-historical caesura within the otherwise comparatively uninterrupted history of the Federal Republic. This book traces the echoes of this "structural break" in the experiences of works councils and trade unionists. On the basis of life history interviews with members of the grassroots elite who not only witnessed the change but also helped to shape it on the ground, the author analyzes their narrative patterns to trace the retrospective constitution of the era with a striking finding: despite crisis-ridden experiences, triumphs form an important narrative pattern of the actors.
- Old Tales and New Stories: Working with Oral History at LWL Industrial Museum Henrichshuette Hattingen: an oral history archive with many interviews with workers in the steel industry and other industries, mainly from the Ruhr region of Germany
- People in Mining (Menschen im Bergbau): an oral history of mining in the Ruhr region of Germany
Greece
- Archive of Oral Testimonies (Centre of Technical Culture-Hermoupolis Industrial Museum): located in the island of Syros, the most significant industrial and maritime centre of the Greek nineteenth century. The archive consists of more than 35 recorded testimonies of industrial workers, craftsmen and businessmen of the city of Hermoupolis in audiovisual form. (Only in Greek)
- Archive of Oral Testimonies, Society for the Study of the History of the Left Youth (EMIAN): comprises of recorded discussions and interviews with political activists, who starred or participated in different organizations and in various phases of the youth and student movement during the period 1950-1974. (Only in Greek)
- Audiovisual Archive of Testimonies (Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly): developed in 2001 as part of the Laboratory of Social Anthropology, it consists of 27 thematic sections of interviews and it is located in the city of Volos. Among others, the Archive contains a section with oral testimonies of the tobacco workers, trade unionists and employees of the Matsangos Tobacco Factory in Volos, a section with interviews on the World of Labour in Volos and a section on the deindustrialization of the same city at the turn of the 20th century.
- Oral History Collections, Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI): Since their establishment, ASKI have collected a significant body of audio collections regarding the Greek political history in the postwar period. The oral history and audio collections of ASKI include party meetings of the leading bodies of several parties of the Greek Left, oral testimonies of activists and political figures of the various parties of the Greek Left during the Postwar period, oral testimonies of the inhabitants of the village of Ziakas regarding their experiences of war, occupation, national resistance and civil war during the 1940s and of Cypriot citizens regarding the Cypriot crisis of 1974.
- Oral History Groups (OPI): bottom-up initiatives on a local level which gather oral testimonies and organize actions regarding oral history in general, such as meetings, seminars and workshops. Although the testimonies cover a great variety of subjects, significant information could be found regarding labour history and the history of the trade union movement. (Only in Greek)
- Oral Testimonies Collection, Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive (ELIA): consists of 270 recorded testimonies, which mainly cover the experiences of war, occupation, national resistance and civil war during the 1940s in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace. (Only in Greek)
India
- Oral History of Labour Movement in India: This is one of the largest collections of oral materials on India’s labour movement. Recordings are available but still require to be digitized. The biographical profiles of the people interviewed, and a summary of the transcripts are uploaded in the archives however. For a description of this collection, please have a look at the following detailed report published in the archives: An Archaeology of Labour Movement: Tapping the Oral Sources (A Study of the Origins and Evolution of the Movement in South India).
- Oral History of Industrial Closure in Delhi: Collection details are available in an online report.
- Oral History of Coal Workers with Special Emphasis on the Impact of Outsourcing