Labour conflicts are an important phenomenon in the history of capitalism, but also in other societies in which unequal labour relations exist. Through labour conflicts, social, economic, political and legal relations have been greatly altered. Researchers concerned with social and economic history but also those involved with institutional or political history cannot ignore labour conflicts.
Therefore, data on labour conflicts are among the most important sources of information in historical research. The International Institute of Social History (IISH) has taken the initiative to set up a moderated list of data files of strikes, lockouts and other labour conflicts. Scholars working in this field are invited to register their work, and to make their data available through the internet - either on their own web pages (which may be made accessible through the IISH-list) or on the web pages of the IISH.
The long term goal is to enhance the exchange and (re-)use of these data in order to write truly international-comparative histories of the development of labour conflicts.
All data bases will not only include the data themselves, but also descriptions of the way in which they are constructed, the sources used, and relevant publications in which the data are analyzed.
We supply three kinds of sources on the IISH collaboratory website:
• List of datafiles available on this website
• Other websites containing statistical data
• Literature
Also available is the codebook suggested to build the databases.
A suggested data base (.mdb, 2.364 MB) and manual (.doc, 813 KB), and spreadsheet (.xls) and manual (.doc, 154 KB) are available for free use, provided you give credits to the IISH.
There is more information on Strikes in the Netherlands (in Dutch), there you can also search the (Dutch) database.
Moderator: Sjaak van der Velden - email: svv@iisg.nl.