Archivists at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) have completed archival processing of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) collection. Users may browse the digitised files on the Archives' multimedia platform.
Comprised of 5592 audiovisual items, the holdings include both analogue and digital materials: 3609 positive slides, 1649 born digital photographs, 68 negatives on plastic, 49 VHS tapes, 15 Betacam tapes, 6 DVDs, and 28 audio cassettes. Archivists have digitised the entire collection to allow full access and guarantee long-term preservation of the material.
ETUC was established in 1973 by 17 union organisations from 15 countries to coordinate and represent workers and their trade unions at the European level. The organisation increased considerably in size over the years, and currently counts more than 90 national trade union confederations from 41 countries, and 10 European trade union federations, among its affiliates.
The content of the collections represents significant moments in the history of ETUC and European workers. The materials document demonstrations, congresses, committees, conferences, official visits and meetings from circa 1979 to 2009, with a specific file for each event.
The decentralised Euro-demonstration ‘Together for employment and social Europe’ held on 2 April 1993 in Brussels and 150 other locations both within and without the EU brought together approximatively one million demonstrators total.
The file on the Euro-demonstration held in Ljubljana on 5 April 2008 ‘More pay, more purchasing power, more equality’ is another interesting example of European worker demonstrations. Held in reaction to the subprime crisis and to protest the wage stagnation and inequality, it represents the first ETUC mobilised demonstration of this kind held in Central Eastern Europe.
Another notable event illustrated by the archives is the visit of the ETUC Secretary General Emilio Gabaglio to Sarajevo on 1 May 1994, during the Bosnian war. The visit was extremely risky both for the ETUC representatives and the people attending the event.
The oldest video in the collection is ‘Together for employment and social Europe’, related to the Third ETUC Congress held in Munich from 14-18 May 1979. The video was recorded on film and subsequently recovered and digitized from a VHS tape. It captured the atmosphere of one of the first congresses of the confederation and its members, including a speech by the Dutch politician and trade unionist Wim Kok, President of the ETUC from 1979 to 1982.
Thanks to a large collection of portraits, the ETUC audiovisual archives provide researchers with numerous images of trade unionists and trade union leaders in office through the years and across Europe. Changes in the secretariat are clearly illustrated in the 2003 video ‘ETUC Outgoing Secretariat’ produced for the tenth ETUC Congress in Prague.
Additional online resources on ETUC and the European Trade Union Institute
In 2020, the European University Institute signed an agreement with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the research branch of ETUC, to digitise and provide online access to ETUI print publications published between 1978 and 1999.
The works are important studies by prominent scholars in the fields of European industrial relations; economic, employment and social policies; and working conditions, health and safety.
The EUI Library led the digitisation project and made the research publications available in full text via the EUI library catalogue.
Research published by the ETUI from 2000 is available online on the ETUI database of publications.
Photo: Euro-demonstration 'For social Europe now!', Euro-demonstration, Rome, 4/10/2003, photographer unknown. (HAEU ETUC-8-I.27)