Courses
All courses carry 4 credits unless otherwise specified.
510 Organizing
Most people in the labor movement, whether rank-and-file, staff, or elected official, have had some experience organizing. Some may have worked on new organizing drives. Others have urged members to become more active in an existing union. Still others have worked on electoral campaigns on behalf of labor-endorsed candidates. Rarely, however, do we have the opportunity to step back and learn the theory behind and research on organizing. Why do we organize? Why organize in certain ways but not others? Why do some organizing drives succeed while others fail? What is the connection between good one-on-one conversations and the larger struggles of which they are a part? These questions and more will be the focus of this course.
605 Labor Research
The principles and techniques of labor advocacy research. Includes survey research, qualitative methods, and corporate research techniques.
615 Collective Bargaining
An overview of the theory and practice of collective bargaining. Includes analysis of different approaches to bargaining, the negotiation process, contract campaigns, and implementing a contract under the law.
616 Labor in the U.S. Economy
This is a course in applied economics. The readings, lectures, and discussions in the course will aim at introducing concepts from the social sciences that can be directly applied to an understanding of key problems confronting workers and workers' movements today, and developing possible solutions to these problems. No prior study of economics is assumed, and the economic theory component is meant to develop insights on real labor issues, historical and present - not just engage in abstract modeling or mathematics. Major topics covered in the course include: the distribution of income and wealth and the causes of rising inequality in recent decades; managerial control of the workplace and labor process; unemployment and its effects on both unemployed and employed workers; the rise and decline of unions; government regulation of capitalist enterprise; the social welfare state; labor-market discrimination and segmentation; capital mobility and globalization.
618 Labor and Public Policy
Explore current public policy debates in the labor movement, with historical context about how these conversations evolved. Students will also learn about strategies and tactics to elevate worker voices at the federal, state, and local levels. Students will interrogate theories of power building to advance the discourse and strategies workers and their advocates can use moving forward to build upon the status quo.
619 Labor Education
Labor education is distinguished from other forms of popular education and from formal schooling by its emphasis on unions as sites for social and political empowerment. Too often though, labor education is seen solely as skills training to be offered to stewards or new leaders rather than as an integral part of the work unions do. In this course we define labor education in the broadest sense to include university-based courses, literacy and basic skills training, workforce development and union leadership training.
620 Labor History
This course examines labor and work in the U.S., from colonial America to the present. We will consider: 1) the relationship between workers, employers, and the state; 2) the strategies that workers? movements have used to build power, along with employers? strategies to minimize that power ; 3) the internal workings of unions, such as democracy, politics, and union structure; and 4) the roles of workers? organizations in reproducing (or changing) inequalities stemming from gender, race, citizenship status, and other identities. We?ll situate these discussions in the changing political, economic, and cultural contexts over time.
622 Labor, Race, Gender and Immigration
Explores historical examples and theories of an intersectional approach to labor solidarity; suggests that the struggle for economic justice is inseparable from the fight for racial and gender equity.
696 Independent Study
Topic not covered by other course work. Consultation with faculty member required.
696DD Final Project Research and Writing Seminar
Students complete an original research project in a series of stages, including articulating methodologies, literature review, outlining, writing, feedback, and intensive peer review. The final product is a polished work ready for publication and conference presentations. Credit, 4-6.
697P Special Topics: Labor in a Global Economy
Examines globalization from both a theoretical and strategic perspective. Focus on the core challenges that economic internationalization presents for labor, and the means by which the U.S. labor movement can rebuild itself into an effective international force.
697Q Labor and the Media
Examination of the evolving relationship between labor and the media and also how unions communicate with their own members in an effort to build power for themselves and the people they represent.
697X Health Policy & Inequality in the US
Explores how, far more than anything else, political inequality shapes the health profile of the nation, and the labor movement is our best hope for building a response to some alarming trends.
699 Master’s Thesis
Maximum credit, 6.
742 Labor and Employment Law
Introduction to federal law governing labor unions, the right to organize, and collective bargaining. Topics include historical examination of labor law in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the operation of the National Labor Relations Board, and the National Labor Relations Act.
746 Comparative Labor Movements
Labor movements and systems in various countries. Combines individual country-studies with a cross-national topical approach.