Oral History Project, seeking North American Anarcho-Syndicalists for interview

Submitted by Imogen on February 4, 2009

I'm a Canadian undergraduate student at Concordia University's Public History department, seeking North American Anarcho-Syndicalists. I'm particularly interested in speaking to people who were active prior to 1975, but youth and currently active Anarcho-Syndicalists are also welcome.

Specifically, I want to highlight the radical roots of organizations like Quebec's CSN. I will compare the experiences and positions of 60s and 70s anarcho-syndicalists instrumental in forming these groups, the positions of current members and leaders within the groups, and the positions and experiences of anarcho-syndicalist youth today.
The project will ultimately take the form of a radio documentary.

Level of confidentiality will be entirely determined by interviewees - I'm willing to change names or identifying details as necessary. The documentary will be aired in front of my history class, and then stored in the Oral History Archives at Concordia, available to the public. If it is aired anywhere else, interviewees will be contacted for consent. My project aims to preserve the oral histories of the Anarcho-Syndicalist movement, and to make information about the radical roots of contemporary labour organizations more publicly availably. The exact thesis or focus of the project may change slightly based on the interview data I collect. In the spirit of public history, I'm striving to keep the project collaborative, and I hope that contributors will shape the documentary, as well as its ultimate thesis, content, and style, as much as I do as a researcher and editor.

I hope this request is appropriate to the forum. Feel free to remove/delete if it isn't, obviously.
Imogen McIntyre
[email protected]

Ex-temp

15 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ex-temp on February 4, 2009

No this is fine.

The poster "syndicalist" on here would be very useful to speak to I bet

syndicalist

15 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on February 7, 2009

Hello, please feel free to email me at: wsany [@] hotmail.com. I'm in the US, but have some knowledge of the CSN/CNTU. If I can be of some help, by all means.

syndicalist

15 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on February 7, 2009

Imogene, not sure how far and advanced your research is at this point.

As you may already be aware, the CNTU/CSN comes out of the social catholic trade union tradition. Like its French counterpart, the CFDT, both flirted with forms and on the edges of reloutionary syndicalism. Perhaps the CNTU/CSN was a bit more localist and decentralized then the CFDT.The greatest affect on this was post-May 1968. Both unions called for workers self-management, end to capitalism and so forth. I think the height of the CNTU/CSN's militant anti-capitalist phase was the early 1970s.

BTW, you might want to see if you can locate the publication "Dissidents". This was published in the 1970s by a small group of anarcho-syndicalists in Montreal.

Goof luck!

Those not familiar with the CNTU/CSN, see this pretty good description:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=a1ARTA0001844

See also:

"Greve General": http://www.nefac.net/node/1290

"Canadian Workers Movement- Uneven development", scroll down to ref. #25
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/59/goldfield.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Wittmann

"The Empire Within Montreal" http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/1974/900/1/Mills_Sean_W_200710_PhD.pdf

syndicalist

14 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on May 16, 2009

Curious whatever happened to this project?

syndicalist

11 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on November 5, 2012

I'm curious if anything has come from this?

syndicalist

11 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on March 31, 2013

bump

Agent of the I…

11 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Agent of the I… on March 31, 2013

he should have given libcom.org an audio copy of the radio documentary or something

syndicalist

9 years 6 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on September 18, 2014

Did this project ever come off? If so, be very interested in seeing the results

syndicalist

6 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on December 28, 2017

Bump