The ITH, the Austrian organization which since 1965 organizes annual labour-history conferences in the city of Linz, will change its course quite fundamentally. Originally founded as a neutral meeting place for labour historians from East and West during the Cold War, the collapse of East-European state socialism plunged [?] the ITH into a severe identity crisis. After years of debates and experiments the General Assembly now unanimously decided to implement a new approach. The essence of the organization's new profile was summarized in the following points:
- The ITH will focus on Global Labour History, that is the global history of all wage-earners, slaves, sharecroppers, etc., including their organizations and associated social movements.
- The ITH organizes conferences and operates as a global network for research institutions and research projects working in the area of Global Labour History.
- The ITH will continue to organize its annual conferences in Linz, but in addition it is interested in organizing separate conferences and projects with affiliated institutions and organizations, on the condition that this will not cause an extra financial burden.
On the basis of these principles a three-year-plan (2007-9) was accepted, called "Labour history beyond borders". Until 2009 the following topics should be themes of conferences:
- 2007: "Transnational networks" which have been interlinking parts of labour classes and movements (and other with these interacting social movements).
- 2008: "Labour History in Emerging Countries": An "in-between-conference", in collaboration with one or more other institutions in the Global South.
- 2008: "A global view of May 1968, forty years after. This conference could be an attempt to correlate the 1968 protest movement with cycles of world economy, and to attend not only Paris May '68 and the Prague Spring, but also the Tet-Offensive and the world wide protests of students and workers from Brazil and Senegal to South Asia.
- 2009: A conference integrating themes of the conference cycle "Labour history beyond borders" which proved strong and fruitful.
Further information can be found on the ITH's website: [url]http://www.ith.or.at[/url].