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Academic Year 2001/2002

Labor Movements and Labor Markets
SOC 292 SP

How do labor movements furnish workers with leverage and power? Why do trade unions and professional associations limit the supply of people selling labor on the labor market? What is the relation between the education system and the labor market? How is racial and gender discrimination related to labor movement struggles? What is the labor market strategy of the contemporary AFL-CIO? This course will consider movements against child labor, retirement movements, job-creation campaigns, anti-immigration restrictions, battles for welfare, shorter workweek movements, etc., all through the lens of labor market strategies for labor movement power. Rather than presume that the labor market is a natural economic phenomenon, the central task of the course is to understand the various ways in which the labor market is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed through social movements, social norms, and social struggle.

MAJOR READINGS

Lourdes Beneria & Catherine Stimpson, WOMEN, HOUSEHOLDS AND THE ECONOMY Robin Kelley, RACE REBELS: CULTURE, POLITICS, AND THE BLACK WORKING CLASS Mariarosa Dalla Costa & Selma James, THE POWER OF WOMEN AND THE SUBVERSION OF THE COMMUNITY Michael Frisch & Daniel Walkowitz, WORKING-CLASS AMERICA: ESSAYS ON LABOR, COMMUNITY, AND AMERICAN SOCIETY Robert Jackson, THE FORMATION OF CRAFT LABOR MARKETS Seymour Martin Lipset, UNIONS IN TRANSITION: ENTERING THE SECOND CENTURY Kim Moody, AN INJURY TO ALL: THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN UNIONISM David Roediger, THE WAGES OF WHITENESS: RACE AND THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS Anthony Lane, SOLIDARITY OR SURVIVAL: AMERICAN LABOR AND EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS, 1830-1924 Articles in Scholarly Journals.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Reading journal, in-class deliberative presentations, three take-home essays (8-10 pages each) or a major research paper (25-30 pages).

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS SOC    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: SOC151 Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2002

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