Union Websites
Unions are a manifestation of collective action of employees in particular workplaces or industries. They themselves also organize into larger entities to allow for collective action in a larger arena. These are links to a few such organizations. You can also search the Internet for individual union websites, such as some that represent University of California workers: United Auto Workers (UAW), University Council-AFT (UC-AFT), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), California Nurses Association (CNA).
- UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles)UTLA represents certificated members of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
- AFL-CIOThe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a voluntary federation of 55 national and international labor unions that represent 12.5 million working men and women.
- California Labor FederationThe CLF is a voluntary organization of 1,200 affiliated unions. Their major areas of activity are Legislative Action, Political Action, and Economic Action.
- University Professional & Technical Employees (UPTE)The union of over 16,000 technical and professional employees at the University of California.
- University Council-AFT (UC-AFT)The union representing librarians and non-Senate faculty at the University of California.
- AFSCMEThe union representing more than 27,000 Service workers, Patient Care Technical workers, and Skilled Craft workers at the University of California.
What Is a Primary Source?
Primary sources are "first-hand" information, sources as close as possible to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources are contrasted with secondary sources, works that provide analysis, commentary, or criticism on the primary source.
In art, literature, and cultural studies, primary sources include original creative works, such as paintings, architectural plans, music, poems, novels, movies, television shows, and even advertisements.
In historical studies, primary sources include written works, recordings, or other sources of information from people who were participants or direct witnesses to the events in question. Examples of commonly used historical primary sources include government documents, memoirs, personal correspondence, oral histories, and contemporary newspaper accounts.
In the sciences, primary sources are usually articles or data resulting directly from experiments, fieldwork, or clinical trials.
Note that the "primacy" of a source can be relative. In cases where original records were lost or a live performance was never recorded, a review or commentary from a third party may be the most primary source available.
- What is primary research and how do I get started?The OWL at Purdue has a helpful page about primary resources.
- Primary vs. Secondary Sources VideoThis short video uses the Apollo 11 mission to describe the difference between primary and secondary sources.
Enjoy this video introduction to UCLA Library Special Collections!
Los Angeles Labor & Working Class History
- Memory Work | L.A.Memory Work L.A. collects and interprets the history of organizing for social & economic justice in Los Angeles and Southern California. Working L.A. is a project of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor & Employment.
- Donde Haiga un Trabajador Explotado, Ahí Estaré Yo: Justice for Janitors' Workers, Organizers, and AlliesOral history interviews with organizers and rank-and-file who were involved with the Service Employees International Union’s Justice for Janitors campaign.
- Los Angeles Public Library Photo CollectionMore than 60,000 images from the Los Angeles Central Library History Department's Photo Collection are available online. Images have been selected to represent the history of the growth of Los Angeles and California, Southern California life, and frequently requested subjects such as major events.
Labor History Archival Collections
Labor unions have deposited their historical files in archives around the country. The catalogs of many archives of labor unions are available for searching online, either in university collections or on private websites. A Google search for labor history archives will get you a long list to look through.
- Labor Archives of WashingtonPortal for the digital collections based at the University of Washington Special Collections. Includes many collections on labor, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.
- Making of Modern Law: The American Civil Liberties Union Papers (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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The records of the ACLU on free speech, citizenship, race, discrimination, immigration, labor, radicalism, and related topics support.Documents include newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, court files, memorandums, telegrams, minutes, and legal case records. A search for "labor unions" finds over 2,000 collections with the phrase.
- Wisconsin Historical Society Labor CollectionBeginning in the 1890s the Wisconsin Historical Society became one of the first institutions in the country to actively collect historical materials related to labor and working class movements. Consequently the Society Library-Archives holds outstanding labor history resources.
- The Dramas of HaymarketThis project draws on materials from the Chicago Historical Society to examine the Haymarket Riots of 1886.
- The Samuel Gompers PapersDigitized resources from the nation’s leading trade unionist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gompers was president of the American Federation of Labor from 1886 until 1924.
- The 1911 Triangle Factory FireOriginal sources on the fire held at the ILR School's Kheel Center (Cornell), an archive of historical material on labor and industrial relations.
- Workers, Labor Unions, Progressives, and Radicals (via History Vault) This link opens in a new window
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Focus on workers and the American labor movement since the Civil War. Workers, Labor Unions, and the American Left in the 20th Century consists of federal government records and has strong coverage of strikes and radical labor unions in the first half of the 20th Century. Labor Unions in the U.S., 1862-1974: Knights of Labor, AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO, consists of records sourced from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Catholic University of America, and the AFL-CIO.
Primary Sources That Include Documents About Labor Movements
- The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives This link opens in a new window
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This searchable database brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. The database covers subjects in arts, music, and leisure, civil rights, counter-culture, law and government, mass media, new left and emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new windowFull text of more than 1000 alternative publications from the 1960s-1980s covering feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, gays, lesbians, labor unions and more.
- ProQuest Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Searches all ProQuest newspapers to which UCLA subscribes, both current and historical newspapers from major U.S. cities (Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal), international news sources, and alternative press.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
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A collection of books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities. You can search on the Advanced Screen for LABOR or TRADE UNIONS to find specific items.
