European Trade Unions Movement

In Europe the consciousness gains acceptance that concerning the political development of many areas the "European dimension" gets more importance.
But economical and political developments, unemployment and changes in industrial relations and systems of social security also give rise to worries and fears of the future. Therefore the statement of Ernst Breit is important: "…Particularly in times of economic and societal changes which are also affecting Europe, trade unions remain important representatives of workers at national and European level…".
European Unity has been a very early topic for the trade unions: this Willy Buschak emphasizes in his short survey on the history of the European Trade Union Movement, part of the inventory "European Trade Union Organisations - Inventory of the Archive of Social Democracy and the Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung".
The importance of trade unions in Europe as significant actors in transnational relations and the fact that the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has been founded 30 years ago (1973) are main reasons to present here a collection of digitised publications and other informations on European Trade Union Organisations - for history lessons at schools, for the interested public in general and for trade union courses especially.
We chose titles in German a n d English in order to make it easier for users throughout Europe to use this information service.
Two further information services we would like to emphasize in this context: the collection of press-releases of various political parties and trade unions and a collection of basic programmes of trade union federations and socialdemocratic/socialist parties in Europe.