title: Union outreach - a pilgrim's progress
abstract: As the American labor movement continues on its path toward reorganization and rejuvenation, archivists are challenged to ensure that the organizational, political, and cultural changes labor unions are experiencing are fully documented. The article examines the need for labor archivists to reach out actively to unions and the problems they face in getting their message across, not only to union leadership but also to union members. Outreach by labor archivists is vital on three critical fronts: the need to secure union funding in support of labor archival programs; obtaining union cooperation in reviewing and amending obsolete deposit agreements; and coordinating efforts with unions to save the records of closing district and local union offices. Attempting to resolve these outstanding issues, labor archivists are pulled between two distinct institutional cultures (one academic in nature, the other enmeshed in a union bureaucracy) and often have their own labor archival programs compromised by the internal dynamics and politics inherent in administering large academic libraries and unions. If labor archivists are to be successful, they must find their collective voice within the labor movement and establish their relevancy to unions during a period of momentous change and restructuring. Moreover, archivists need to give greater thought to designing and implementing outreach programs that bridge the fundamental "disconnect" between union bureaucracies and the rank and file, and unions and the public
keyphrases: American labor movement archivists cultural changes labor unions labor archivists union leadership union members union funding labor archival programs union cooperation obsolete deposit agreements union offices institutional cultures union bureaucracy internal dynamics large academic libraries collective voice political changes