Audio-visual material

Covering the period 1911 to 1990 the collection includes minutes, financial records, copies of awards, court rulings, correspondence, and an extensive run of the Union’s official publication Flashlight. While the collection is relatively large, it is clear that these are not the complete records of the Northern Hotel Workers Union but rather a fragmented set which have survived several changes in the Union’s physical address and administrative practices. Some of the files from the 1930s and 1940s had obviously been selected by the Union for retention and were received labelled ‘archives’ and had been wrapped in brown paper.

Originally the collection also contained several reels of film footage, including a copy of the 1941 musical comedy That night in Rio, still in its Twentieth Century Fox cardboard distribution box complete with postage stamps postmarked 1946. It is possible that the film was used by the Union for a social evening and never returned. The other two reels comprised a copy of the 1980 documentary The hammer and the anvil: a trade union history of New Zealand, produced and directed by Gerd Pohlman. Preservation and storage issues meant that it was impossible to retain the original reels of film, however, a digital copy of The hammer and the anvil: a trade union history of New Zealand of has been obtained on CD for the collection (see item 10/1).