Books and films
Books and films that help us understand collective action.
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Der Streik hat mir geholfen, als junger Mensch Kraft aufzubauen / The strike helped me build strength as a young person.": Migrant struggles against exploitation and racism
The migrant struggles for humane working conditions and fair wages are also a courageous fight against the injustices of capitalism and racism since the early 1960s. A high point of these struggles was a series of migrant strikes in the summer of 1973.
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Die Fahrenden Gesellen: Junge Angestellte zwischen Gewerkschaft und Jugendbewegung (1909–1933) / The Traveling Journeymen: Young Employees Between Trade Union and Youth Movement
This study examines the development of the "Traveling Journeymen" within the German National Association of Commercial Employees (DHV). The organization was founded in the style of the Wandervogel movement.
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Die Krise der Repräsentation in Gewerkschaften / The Crisis of Representation in Trade Unions: A Case Study on the Assessment of the Right-Wing Alternative Trade Union Center
In the context of/ increasing class disparities and the erosion of traditional political and trade union organizations, Sophie Schlingmann examines how right-wing populist movements strategically exploit these developments to mobilize segments of the workforce. The growing polarization of the political spectrum is further intensifying the perception of a…
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Die Mutigen 56 - Germany's longest strike
It was different for the employees. The workers did not want to put up with this unequal treatment anymore.
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Dieses verdorbene Herz / This Corrupted Heart: A Novel | The must-read of the year and the most captivating novel of the moment
Suddenly, Nayan Olak sees the mysterious Helen Fletcher back in town. Since the tragic death of his son, he hasn't risked love.
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Focusing or Fragmenting Representation at Work?
Focusing or Fragmenting Representation at Work? reflects on how existing forms of workplace representation have changed in recent years and how new forms have developed.
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Gewerkschaften in der Zeitenwende / Trade unions at a turning point in history
As a consequence of a redistribution of resources from the social to the military, attacks on the welfare state are to be expected. A social climate characterized by inflation, deindustrialization, and the dismantling of social welfare does not strengthen the demands of the trade unions.
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Gewerkschaften neu denken / Rethinking trade unions
Trade unions in the twenty-first century face a dual crisis of legitimacy. They are struggling not only with structural shifts in power resulting from globalization, digitalization, and political change, but also with the loss of their capacity to shape society politically.
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Gewerkschaften und ostdeutsche Transformation / Trade unions and East German transformation: Participation – codetermination?
The democratic revolution in East Germany and the subsequent political, economic, and social transformation presented the people of East Germany with numerous challenges whose effects are still felt today. The contributors focus on the agricultural, railway, and metal industries, examining the role of trade unions in managing these transformation processes.
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Ich will meinen eigenen Weg gehen Bertl Lörcher Sozialist Antifaschist Gewerkschafter / I want to go my own way
Albert Lörcher, a furrier's apprentice from Munich, was just 20 years old when a special court in Munich sentenced him to eleven months in prison in August 1933. Bertl, as everyone called him, had joined the Socialist Workers' Youth while still an apprentice .
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Im Morgengrauen der Digitalisierung / At the dawn of digitalization: IG Metall and the Second Industrialization (1950–1970)
In the 1950s and 1960s, the first computers and robots found their way into offices and factory floors in West Germany. Even then, the question arose as to how digitalization would affect the world of work and how trade unions would manage this transformation.
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Mehr Zeit zum Leben Lieben Lachen / More time to live, love, laugh : On the struggle for free time
The promise of less work and more time for rest and enjoyment contains a utopian element: the vision of a life without toil and drudgery. It's no wonder, then, that the struggles for shorter working hours, more leisure time, more vacation, free weekends, and the greatest possible self-determination in shaping one's free time are what drive the masses so…
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Nehmen wir das Leben wieder selbst in die Hand. Eine Einladung zum Kampf für das Gute Leben für Alle / Let's take our lives back into our own hands. An invitation to fight for a good life for all.
“What happens when a VW worker, an activist, and a mobility expert sit down at the same table? Quite a lot — and above all: sparks fly.
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Prototyp 1928-33
A book of materials about a forgotten building of workers' education in Leipzig: The "School of Work" was a model project of workers' education under the direction of Gertrud Hermes (1872–1942). With the new building designed by architect Johannes Niemeyer (1889–1980), a modern space was created in Leipzig in 1928, intended for the communal living and…
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Putsch statt Revolution Die Kommunistische Internationale in Mitteldeutschland / Coup instead of revolution - The Communist International in Central Germany 1921
On March 18, 1921, Bolshevik organizations such as the KPD, KAPD, and other left-wing radical forces in Central Germany launched a coup in the industrial region around Halle, Leuna, Merseburg, and the Mansfeld region, as well as in Hamburg. It ended in defeat and discredited the idea of revolution in Germany for decades.
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Richard Robert Wagner: Gewerkschaft, Bildung Und Die Politische Kultur Der Moderne in Wien
With this annotated selection of works by Richard Robert Wagner, an important contribution to the history of Viennese Modernism — and at the same time to the contemporary debate on democracy and emancipation — is made accessible once again. In the introduction, Johann Dvořák summarizes the key positions of the popular educator, trade unionist,…
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Ruhrgemüse, polnisch
A family story set in the Ruhr region, a tale of arrival in a foreign land, of solidarity, and of the struggle against exclusion, injustice, and poverty – from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. As Polish immigrants, Adam and Zuzanna experience Dortmund at the heart of its enormous industrial development.
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Science Fiction und Labour Fiction / Science Fiction and Labour Fiction: Visions of the Future of Work and Labor Struggles
Science fiction invents fascinating futures – but it also shapes the present, not least through technological inspiration and pop-cultural socialization. What we expect and fear from the future is often something we have previously read or seen in science fiction stories.
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Siegfried Aufhäuser / Siegfried Aufhäuser: Trade Unionist, Politician, and Jewish Socialist. 1884–1969
An impressive biography marked by political struggle and persecution from the German Empire to the Federal Republic of Germany. Siegfried Aufhäuser is considered the most prominent representative of the free-trade union movement for white-collar workers.
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Streik doch einfach mit! 138 Tage Arbeitskampf beim DuMont-Konzern
For 138 days, workers at the Kölner Bundesanzeiger publishing house were on strike. The authors of this book tell that story — and also of the company’s refusal to negotiate, of the reprisals the strikers had to face, and of the attempts to break their will by all possible means.
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Tage aus Glas / Days of Glass
Düsseldorf in 1901. Glassmakers across the German Empire are on strike.
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The Work of Music: Labor and Creativity in Germany's Long Nineteenth Century
In The Work of Music, Celia Applegate examines the cultural history of Austro-German music through the lens of labor from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia to the Third Reich. She explores the working world of music and musicians, the various jobs they performed, the work music did in society, the observations and commentaries of contemporaries on the shape…
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Unter Kameraleuten: 100 Jahre Kameraverbände in Deutschland / Among Cameramen: 100 Years of Camera Associations in Germany
In the autumn of 1925 – when the new medium of film was just 30 years old – German cinematographers formed the first professional association. They were among the leading figures of this new art form, alongside their American counterparts, and films like *The Cabinet of Dr.
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Von meiner Gesellenwanderung (1900–1902) / From my journeyman's travels (1900–1902): Notes of the important politician as a young man.
Robert Grimm (1881–1958), the organizer of the Zimmerwald Conference (1915) and the Kiental Conference (1916), as well as president of the strike committee during the Swiss general strike (1918), embarked on a journeyman's tour as a young printer's apprentice from 1900 to 1902. He kept a diary of his journey back to Switzerland.
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When trade unions learn to innovate
Trade unions across Europe now mainly represent a shrinking workforce in the public sector and traditional manufacturing, while struggling to organise low-paid private service workers. Even in countries with strong institutional support, unions risk stagnation if they fail to adapt.
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Willi Bleicher. Texte eines Widerständigen / Willi Bleicher. Texts of a resister
Willi Bleicher, born in 1907, was unemployed for many years during the period of the Great Depression. Yet he fought for a just world and against the brown menace.
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Wir lernen im Vorwärtsgehen / We learn by moving forward: The Austrian workers' movement: For interested parties and activists who want to learn from history
We learn by moving forward: The Austrian workers' movement. For roughly 200 years, workers in Austria and its predecessor states have fought for a better life.
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Shankar Guha Niyogi: A Politics in red and green
The industrial worker has been portrayed in environmental and technological discourses as unconcerned with environmental questions, a passive recipient of technology or as harbouring an illogical aversion to modern technology. Shankar Guha Niyogi: A Politics in Red and Green delves into the rich ideas and experiences of a movement born in Chhattisgarh in…
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केदार दास और मजदूर आन्दोलन “Kedar Das and the Workers’ Movement”
The story of the martyrdom of labor leader Kedar Das. Kedar Das was an ordinary worker living in a small village.
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We Only Want the Earth: The Life and Ideas of James Connolly
An iconic presence on the landscape of Irish socialism and republicanism, the name of James Connolly looms large in the trade union movement and wherever radical left-wing politics are espoused. The film tries to place Connolly’s radical ideas and many political achievements against the landscape of the contemporary world as well as documenting his more…