n. (also labour record)information maintained to document the activities of a unionCappon 1948, 57–58For the report of the Committee on International Relations and Business Archives which has a promising project under way, it will not be amiss to emphasize that the field of labor records is a kind of “no man’s land” which for many years has distressed the historian venturing into it much more than the archivist who has neglected it or the labor leader who seems blissfully unaware of its significance.Browne 1954, 263The objection can be made, however, that this apparent lack of concern for labor records except as they constitute sources of history can be a disservice to organized labor and even to the historian.Eckert 1963, 187Collecting labor records was equally difficult. Thinking that the unions would have no objection to releasing printed materials, we began by asking just for them, but only about ten percent were willing to donate even these.Stewart 1964, 96The loss, removal, or destruction of labor records stems in part, I believe, from the inherently dynamic character of the labor movement itself. The abnormal activity usually concomitant with a union's growing period does not permit much concern or time for such ordinary tasks as recordkeeping.DeLottinville 1988, 8–9Specifically, the article examines the acquisition efforts at the national level and notes some of the activity on the regional level, discusses some experiments in acquisition strategy for labour records and in the establishment of a “network” for labour archivists, and looks at the changing research use of labour union records in the last ten years. In light of these developments, I shall try to look ahead (or perhaps simply look up from the immediate problem of labour archives) to discuss some long-term issues which need to be confronted: automated records created by unions; records management issues in the union context; and the changing nature of the current trade union movement.Olliff 1998, 59Labor in Alabama, which has no collecting institution comparable to Georgia State University’s Southern Labor Archives, is also woefully underdocumented. Creators of labor records have recently begun to champion this cause, working through the Alabama Organized Labor Awards Foundation (AOLAF), a committee of the Alabama AFL-CIO. The primary mission of AOLAF is to provide information to the public about the activities of AFL-CIO unions in the state and to honor organized labor’s friends, but it is charged also with preserving Alabama labor’s heritage, thus making it the perfect body to build the labor archives.Turrini 2005, 149The proliferation of repositories collecting labor records in the 1960s and 1970s and the increased competition for labor manuscripts played a significant role in the decision to omit union records from the new collecting policy, which focused instead on national Catholic organizations, Catholic social activists, and Catholic intellectuals, all collecting areas with less competition.Blake 2007, 145This new relationship would center on organizing records management training programs for labor records keepers, intervening to save records during organizational mergers, and lobbying the movement to pass constitutional provisions requiring the proper disposition of records. In addition, the project recommended updating and re-issuing the Labor History directory of labor archives and the Meany Archives’ How to Keep Union Records manual, along with establishing a Labor Documentation Action Network.
