Introduction to Labor Studies

This course is designed to provide a broad, inter-disciplinary overview of labor studies, covering topics that are fundamental to the study of work, workers, and worker organizations. These include labor history as well as contemporary challenges facing the U.S. labor movement. Students in the course will examine the purposes and structure of unions, the political and economic landscape within which unions must operate, organizing strategies and the nature of employer resistance to unions, alternative forms of worker organization, and the impacts of globalization. Students will assess the legacy of labor as it relates to questions of gender, race, sexuality, and immigration and will look at proposals and strategies for building worker power and revitalizing the labor movement through coalitional organizing and cross-border alliances.