Primary Sources: The 1980s: Labor & Employment

"During the mid-twentieth century, the American Labor Movement reached a pinnacle of power and influence within society. The extent of labor's reach was often seen in its concerted efforts to secure better pay, better working conditions and reliable pensions for its members. This digital repository enables scholars to study broad trends in U.S. labor and industrial relations by providing access to original materials from a variety of authors, organizations and government agencies, which together provide a multi-disciplinary perspective on the life and times of the labor movement between 1945 and 1980. The collection includes original documents, pamphlets, company publications, union reports, student papers and theses, and is divided into five areas of focus: General Labor; Longshore Workers; Minority Workers; Older Workers; and Personnel Policies."

"Primary source accounts: photographs, oral histories, videos, essays and historical documents from the United Farm Worker Delano Grape Strikers and the UFW Volunteers who worked with Cesar Chavez to build his farmworker movement."

"...audio from various events during the farmworker movement"

"The Hagley Digital Archives provides online access to selected items from the Hagley Museum and Library's collection of images, documents, and publications related to the history of business, technology, and society."

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story about a UFCW strike at Hormel. This b-roll footage shows protesters. The story aired at 6:00 P.M.

"ILHOP is the largest and longest-running, labor-focused oral history project in the world.
You can access more than 1,000 streaming audio files and interview transcripts through the University of Iowa’s Digital Library, or by visiting the State Historical Society of Iowa. "Description from https://www.iowalaborhistory.org/ilhop-1

"The University of Maryland (UMD) Libraries is home to numerous special collections holdings that relate to Labor in America. The collections consist of international labor unions as well as Maryland-related labor movements and issues. The digital surrogates within Labor in America not only document specific labor unions, such as the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBCJA) and the Cigar Makers International Union, they also illustrate how labor and labor movements developed in North America from the colonial times to the present day."

"Recordings of a Bay Area independent radio news program from 1984-1987 covering labor issues with a primary focus on California. Includes numerous interviews with local labor leaders regarding significant strikes and labor struggles such as the historic Latina-led Watsonville Cannery Strike, United Farm Workers' (UFW) "Wrath of Grapes" campaign, and the month-long SEIU Local 250 Kaiser healthcare workers strike."

After 31 Years at Company, City Official Is Lightning Rod in Strife

"Hundreds of National Guardsmen in riot gear shut down the strife-torn Geo. A. Hormel & Co. meat plant here early Tuesday morning to prevent violence after a crowd of several hundred striking workers gathered outside the plant's gates to protest..."

"In the last two decades of the 20th century, labor unions in Los Angeles defied a national trend of decline for the labor movement. Led by a new generation of leaders who drew inspiration from social movements of the 1960s, the L.A. labor movement grew by organizing immigrant, Latino, and African American workers in the service economy. In a series of high profile strikes, unions took on the power of transnational corporations and, more often than not, they won. Buoyed by these victories, the L.A. County Federation of Labor then helped to reshape electoral politics in California by mobilizing working-class voters. Items in this collection are drawn from the records of the United Service Workers West/SEIU (Justice for Janitors), the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), UNITE HERE Local 11, and the records of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment."

"The records of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, 1968-1985, include minutes, resolutions, subject and chronological files, correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings, legal files, contracts, press releases, grievances, arbitration, and printed materials. The records reflect the organization's efforts to improve the working conditions of air traffic controllers, their wages and pension plans, and to obtain shorter work hours."

"This multi-media web site brings the vital history of Seattle's civil rights movements to life with scores of video oral histories, hundreds of rare photographs, documents, movement histories, and personal biographies, more than 300 pages in all. Based at the University of Washington, the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project is a collaboration between community groups and UW faculty and students."

"Georgia State University's Southern Labor Archives, established in 1971, is dedicated to collecting, preserving and making available the documentary heritage of Southern workers and their unions, as well as that of workers and unions having a historic relationship to the region. The largest accumulation of labor records in the Southeast, the Archives holdings include organizational records, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs, personal papers of labor leaders, oral histories, collective bargaining agreements, constitutions and bylaws, and convention proceedings from 1888 to the present."

"Spamtown, USA is a moving portrait of Austin, Minnesota, during the 1985 Hormel strike. While five kids dream of space camp, tennis teams, and out-of-state college, they find their families and community suddenly divided by picket lines and opposing agendas. This is the story of having the strength to stand up for what you believe in, the challenge that comes in disagreeing with those you love, and the humor that helps keep friendships alive. Based on interviews with people who were children during the infamous Hormel strike of the 1980's, this play delves into what it means to grow up in an environment where all the adults are fighting and there is no room left for compromise."

Vicki L. Frankovich, president of the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, said at a news conference, ''Because we are no longer withholding our services, we can no longer be replaced.''

"Trans World Airlines canceled half its domestic and international flights yesterday and consolidated many others as striking flight attendants walked picket lines at more than 30 airports around the country."

Includes: Over 270,000 pages (covering years 1905-1952) of Administrative files, The Teamster magazine (1907-1969 digitized), 191 digitized films, and Dozens of audio recordings (with full transcriptions).

"This collection presents 470 interview excerpts and 3882 photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994. The documentary materials presented in this online collection explore how Paterson's industrial heritage expresses itself in Paterson: in its work sites, work processes, and memories of workers. Included are interpretive essays exploring such topics as work in the African American community, local foodways, the ethnography of a single work place (Watson Machine International), business life along a single street in Paterson (21st Avenue), and narratives told by retired workers."