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Formerly the Tom Mooney Labor School, the records consist of correspondence, minutes of faculty meetings, faculty committee reports, financial records and fundraising materials, promotional flyers and press releases, student publications, course outlines and course announcement flyers, school term schedules from 1950 to 1955, and a transcript of the proceedings of a forum, "Industry and Labor in the Postwar World," held on July 26, 1944. Included are letters to Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern concerning support of a music department at CLS. The school was investigated in 1946 by the Tenney Committee, the California legislature's Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, on the charge that an institute jointly held by CLS and the University of California was Communist-sponsored. However, the only indication of this fact in the records is brief mention in the faculty meeting minutes.

The records of the California Labor School(CLS) are comprised of materials documenting the educational programs, activities, and events of the school. The records are organized into four series: Academic Files, Office Files, School Promotion, and School Publications. Records of particular interest are pamphlets found in the School Publications series, which include essays, speeches, stories, plays, and even a book of early songs by Malvina Reynolds. Researchers will also find notable historical facts on the CLS in the Press Releases and Ephemera folder of the School Promotion series.