This winter and spring terms I'll be teaching LABOR 480: Applied Labor Research. The MyPlan course overview for the winter term is linked here.
Attached is the draft syllabus for this winter, and my course description is below. If students have not taken one of the prerequisite courses, my colleague, Sai, or I will provide them with a passcode.
Course Description
How do our labor and the labor of others connect us to our communities? How can working people create plans to mobilize for social change? How do we understand who has power, and what that power means for working people and our communities?
Through this course, students will explore how labor research contributes to broader worker-led movements. To do that, we will examine power in working relationships, how policy impacts working people, and how workers can collectively claim power while participating in projects to support unions, worker centers, and other labor-focused organizations.
This course will use popular education methods and utilize an ungrading approach. Students will complete an independent research project - a workplace or employer analysis, and a larger collaborative project partnered with a local labor organization. Skills students can expect to use or develop include basic data analysis (finding averages, summing, etc.) in Microsoft Excel, doing advanced internet-based research, including utilizing datasets through public and private organizations, conducting interviews, analyzing surveys, and submitting requests through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or Public Records Act at the state and local level.
Please let me know of any questions or feedback.
Best,
Rachel