We are independent
workers organizing together.

The Oral History Worker Collective emerges from iterative collaborations and discussions about doing oral history work. Where projects are term-limited and relationships with institutions fleeting, it’s the connections we build with each other as practitioners that are the throughline of our careers.

We’re not a nonprofit. We’re not a startup. We are independent workers organizing together to build good jobs and work conditions. We aim to bring together disparate networks and to have a presence in larger discussions about labor advocacy across the field of cultural work. Participation is open to all oral history workers (past, present, future) who want to discuss work/life. There is no cost to join.

We host a resource library and conversation series, and facilitate a non-hierarchical platform for peer networking. We are a Collective in that we share these efforts and outcomes. If you participate in the Collective, you are part of our “we.”

More broadly, we foreground anti-exploitative practices. As oral history workers and cultural workers of all kinds face threats to job security and safety, it’s critical that we lean on each other and resist normalizing the negative conditions that lead so many of us to burnout. Ultimately, providing support and care for one another helps us center the people we interview, whose generosity and knowledge enables all our work.

When freelancers and contingent workers aren’t supported, the field shrinks — not just in terms of who can afford to stay, but in whose stories get told. Making this work economically viable and accessible isn’t just about fairness — it’s about preventing intellectual and ethical atrophy across the field.

A small group of core organizers actualize the goals of the Oral History Worker Collective. Core organizers shift as demands of work and life impact our capacity as individuals but the Collective and its projects persist. Core organizers in 2025 are Sarah Dziedzic and David Wolinsky, and in 2024 included Benji de la Piedra and the late Tammy Clemons (1973–2025).

Recent organizers are contingent laborers, freelancers, and disabled, among other identities.

This collective emerges from and is inspired by worker-led movements and resources in oral history and adjacent fields of practice, particularly those endeavors that have called for transparency around oral history labor, pay equity, freelancer rights, and colleagueship.