This research offers a historical examination of Lebanese labor unions in the postcolonial context of the 1940s and 1950s, focusing on the intersection of three research objectives.
The first research objective is to analyze how trade unions conceptualized labor issues in the broader context of societal concerns. This includes examining the conceptual frameworks employed by labor organizers and their strategies for mobilizing workers. It centers on the Federation of Workers’ Unions (ittihad al-niqabat al-‘ummal, established around 1944) and the Labor League (jam‘ait al niqabat al-‘ummal, established in 1946).
A second, interconnected objective of this project is to explore the interactions between trade unions and global developments, with an emphasis on their relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cold War. The Federation of Workers’ Unions was affiliated with the communist-leaning World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and its chairman served on the WFTU's executive committee. Conversely, the Labor League was chaired by the son of former Lebanese President Beshara al-Khoury (1943-1952). In addition to examining labor mobilization and social criticism, the project analyzes the dynamics of cooptation within the trade union movement, the use of divide-and-rule tactics to weaken it, and the suppression of communist-leaning trade unions by the Lebanese state with assistance from the United States. These dimensions are crucial for understanding the historical trajectory of the labor movement in Lebanon, which currently holds a relatively weak position in a country grappling with one of the most severe financial crises worldwide.
Moreover, this project integrates an exploration of the politics of archives and its implications for historical research as a methodological innovation. The study views archives not solely as repositories of historical knowledge but as a subject of study in themselves. The goal is to historicize archives as material politics and propose an urgent initiative to digitize remaining union archives located by the author in Beirut.
