The only full-service online Labor studies program in the world.
The associate degree in Labor Studies (LS) provides a solid beginning career foundation in the field of work. Students may use the degree to jumpstart their college education, combine it with another major, and earn higher incomes and promotions.
Find the general education core breakdown for your specific campus:
Students seeking an AS in Labor Studies must take 30 credit hours from the IUPUI General Education Core courses and 3 credit hours from the list of IUPUI general education courses. As a part of these 33 credit hours, all students must successfully complete 12 credit hours from the Labor Studies Required Areas of Learning listed directly below. These courses can count toward the General Education core (30 cr.) or as general education courses (3 cr.).
IUPUI general education courses
To be completed within the General Education core courses (30 cr.), or in the remaining general education courses (21cr.).
Students seeking an AS in Labor Studies must take 30 credit hours from the IU Bloomington General Education Core courses and 3 credit hours from the list of IU Bloomington general education courses. As a part of these 33 credit hours, all students must successfully complete 12 credit hours from the Labor Studies Required Areas of Learning listed directly below. These courses can count toward the General Education core (30 cr.) or as general education courses (3 cr.).
IU Bloomington general education courses
Students seeking an AS in Labor Studies must take 30 credit hours from the IU Northwest General Education Core courses and 3 credit hours from the list of IU Northwest general education courses. As a part of these 33 credit hours, all students must successfully complete 12 credit hours from the Labor Studies Required Areas of Learning listed directly below. These courses can count toward the General Education core (30 cr.) or as general education courses (3 cr.).
IU Northwest general education courses
To be completed within the General Education core courses (30 cr.), or in the remaining general education courses (21cr.).
Students seeking an AS in Labor Studies must take 30 credit hours from the IU South Bend General Education Core courses and 3 credit hours from the list of IU South Bend general education courses. As a part of these 33 credit hours, all students must successfully complete 12 credit hours from the Labor Studies Required Areas of Learning listed directly below. These courses can count toward the General Education core (30 cr.) or as general education courses (3 cr.).
IU South Bend general education courses
If you are pursuing a Labor Studies degree on an IU campus not listed above, contact Pat Hill for details on the general education common core coursework for your campus.
Please note:
The Labor Studies concentration consists of 15 credit hours of 100/200 level courses and 12 credit hours of 200/300/400 level courses. There are no pre-requisites or co-requisite Labor Studies courses. Students can take the Labor Studies courses in any order, although, we do suggest a logical progression (100 level, 200 level, 300 level, etc.).
IU School of Social Work Department of Labor Studies
PartnershipsOffice of Education AssessmentThe Office of Education Assessment is responsible for the evaluation of student learning outcomes at the BSW and MSW level for the Indiana School of Social Work.
ToolsThis course includes coverage of historical development, labor law basics, and contemporary issues. It also discusses a survey of labor unions in the United States, focusing on their organization and their representational, economic, and political activities.
This course explores the struggles of working people to achieve dignity and security from social, economic, and political perspectives. It also explores a survey of the origin and development of unions and the labor movement from colonial times to the present.
This course serves as an orientation for the study of labor history. It explores both critical and historical methodologies based on primary and secondary sources, biases, and interpretations. Discussions focus on selective questions and events.
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary and advocacy approach of labor studies. Exploring labor’s role in society, the class will look at how unions have changed the lives of working people and contributed to better social policies. Discussions will highlight the relationship of our work lives to our non-work lives and will look at U.S. labor relations in a comparative framework.
Required for all Labor Studies program majors. This course introduces the Labor Studies degree and to the knowledge and skills needed by students to progress toward a degree in a reasonable time frame. Students will learn how to build a plan of study that takes advantage of both credit for prior learning and new learning opportunities.
Emphasis for this course is placed on developing learning
portfolios as foundation documents for academic self-assessment and planning and as applications for self-acquired competency (SAC) credit. This course applies only as elective credit to labor studies degrees.
This course explores statutes and common-law actions protecting income, working conditions, and rights of workers. Topics include workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, fair labor standards, Social Security, retirement income protection, and privacy and other rights.
This course reviews a survey of the law governing labor-management relations. Topics include the legal framework of collective bargaining, problems in the administration and enforcement of agreements, and protection of individual employee rights.
This course examines federal, state, and local governmental effects on workers, unions, and labor-management relations; political goals; influences on union choices of strategies and modes of political participation, past and present; relationships with community and other groups.
This course examines some of the major problems confronting society, workers, and the labor movement. Topics may include automation, unemployment, international trade, environmental problems, minority and women’s rights, community relations, and changing government policies.
This course examines policies and practices that contribute to workplace discrimination and those designed to eliminate it. It explores effects of job discrimination and occupational segregation. It analyzes Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and related topics in relation to broader strategies for addressing discrimination.
This course looks at union representation in the workplace. It evaluates uses of grievance procedures to address problems and administer the collective bargaining agreement. It also explores analyses of relevant labor law and the logic applied by arbitrators to grievance decisions. Students learn about the identification, research, presentation, and writing of grievance cases.
This course analyses aspects of the political economy of labor and the role of organized labor within it. It emphases the effect on workers, unions, collective bargaining of unemployment, investment policy, changes in technology and corporate structure. It also explores patterns of union political and bargaining responses.
This course explores the globalization of trade, production, and migration and the effects of these processes on American workers. Through reading, discussion, and problem formation, students will critically think about the ways global processes and policies impact American workers’ daily lives, analyze existing historical and current justifications for offshore production and the dismantling of barriers to trade and investment, and explore alternatives to these policies.
This course reviews elements and issues of occupational health and safety and emphases the union’s role in the implementation of workplace health and safety programs, worker and union rights, hazard recognition techniques, and negotiated and statutory remedies—in particular the OSHA Act of 1970.
This course provides collective bargaining simulations and other participatory experiences in conjunction with L250. L250 is either a prerequisite or a core requisite.
This course explores union organization and representation of state and municipal government employees, including patterns in union structure, collective bargaining, grievance representation, and applicable law.
This course evaluates organizational leadership issues for union, community, and other advocate organizations. It analyzes leadership styles, membership recruitment, and leadership development. It examines the role of leaders in internal governance and external affairs, including committee building, delegation, negotiations, and coalition building.
This course provides an analysis of the growth, composition, structure, behavior, and governmental processes of U.S. labor organizations, from the local to the national federation level. It considers the influence on unions of industrial and political environments; to organizational behavior in different types of unions; and to problems in union democracy.
This course explores the origins of white privilege from the era of industrialization and the rise of the factory system in the US, the manifestations of white privilege in today’s workplace and the mechanisms by which white privilege creates workplace advantages and inequalities. The foundational materials include the scholarship of W.E. B. DuBois (1925), David Roediger (1999-2005), Herbert Gutman (1973), Edgar Schein (1990) and Nkomo (2014). The interrogation of white privilege in the workplace is viewed through the lens of organizational analysis and political economy theory.
This course explores the impact of global supply chains (GSCs) on workers’ abilities to maintain adequate living standards, the regulatory frameworks under which trade, investment and taxation occur, and the strategies/tactics workers can use to create an alternative governing structure which promotes sustainable work and development within the GSC.<strong> </strong>
This course explores various approaches and problems in private- and public-sector organizing. Traditional approaches are evaluated considering structural changes in labor markets and workforce demographics. Topics range from targeting and assessments to committee building and leadership development.
This is a capstone experience for associate degree students.
This course, situated in political economy theory of discrimination, interrogates workplace challenges women experience. Discussions include women’s position and participation in the workforce within the context of race, class, and gender. Strategies and initiatives to correct gender and wage disparities, job insecurity, and sexual harassment and create inclusive workplaces follows.
This course examines media (and, in turn, public) understanding of the U.S. labor movement and analyzes reaction to some specific, highly publicized strikes. News media have rarely served as independent storytellers of strikes. Instead they have told stories that are aligned with the generally antilabor interests of corporate America (including their publishers and parent media corporations). Even among more liberal media, "ordinary" workers are often portrayed as a passive mass that is controlled and directed by unions and labor leaders. It is rare to see any news outlet sympathetic to the beliefs and causes of labor or to striking workers. This course will be driven by the overarching question of why that might be.
This course examines media (and, in turn, public) understanding of the U.S. labor movement and analyzes reaction to some specific, highly publicized strikes. News media have rarely served as independent storytellers of strikes. Instead they have told stories that are aligned with the generally antilabor interests of corporate America (including their publishers and parent media corporations). Even among more liberal media, "ordinary" workers are often portrayed as a passive mass that is controlled and directed by unions and labor leaders. It is rare to see any news outlet sympathetic to the beliefs and causes of labor or to striking workers. This course will be driven by the overarching question of why that might be.
This course will examine the causes, preventions, and individual risks for workers from the real/perceived threat of violence in the workplace. We will identify behavioral, environmental, and administrative factors that contribute or prevent the incidents of violence in the workplace.
This one-credit course will briefly examine all aspects of workplace and academic sexual harassment, including but not limited to definitions, history, federal and state law, EEOC guidelines and procedures, employer and school liability, personnel, school and contract language and policies, and personal perspectives. Reasons for and solutions to workplace and academic sexual harassment will be discussed.
American Dream in an Age of Decline is the interdisciplinary exploration of frameworks within which the notion of the American Dream has been constructed and changed over time in relation to the working class. What is the American Dream? How do the dreamers envision equality in their societies? How do perceptions of and struggles for equality impact definitions of success and happiness? There is no simple response that would be sufficient to these questions. In this course, we will examine what has happened to the American Dream and the life chances of working people. We will focus on the present state of working Americans and see how the standard of living for Americans has been affected (defined) by the larger social, political and economic environments.
Health Care Staffing and Total Worker Health will explore the theory and practice of workforce staffing in health care considering the impact of health care management decisions related to staffing on quality of care for patients and occupational health for workers. Theoretical perspectives, research, union contracts and definitional constructs will be examined and discussed. Participants will work in individually and in pairs to research and explore health care staffing in specific segments of the health care industry and propose an action research project as a synthesis of their learning.
This class will examine the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act law that has given employees new rights to request leave from their employer. We will review the history of the passage of the FMLA and will examine maternity leave, parental leave, sick leave, and protections for disabled workers in US and other countries.
This one (1) credit will examine the dynamics of workplace bullying. We will analyze the factors that contribute to bullying in the workplace. We will examine the types of personalities that allows bullies to perpetrate the harm and how bullies threaten, intimidate, humiliate, and sabotage both targets and workplace productivity.
This course considers ways in which educational researchers and policy makers have identified, examined, and sought to address the goals and challenges of preK-12 public education in the United States. Key characteristics like accountability and testing, desegregation and diversity, school choice and the impact of charter schools, and teachers’ alternative certification are explored. The course is designed to encourage a wide range of viewpoints, and the course readings come from a variety of disciplines including political science, public policy, sociology, anthropology, education, and media reports.
This course explores the ethical decision-making and behavior in a unionized workplace, based on the values and social justice mission of unions. Students will examine what constitutes ethical standards on issues such as affirmative action, transparency, membership involvement, and democratic procedures. This includes the philosophical and theoretical bases for ethics and discussions on the relationship between law and ethics in dealing with workplace conflict.
This course examines how work is organized and how jobs are evaluated, measured, and controlled. It explores social and technical elements of work through theories of scientific management, the human relations school of management, and contemporary labor process literature.
(Recommended only after L220 or with permission of instructor.) This course explores the legal and practical context of grievance arbitration, and its limitations and advantages in resolving workplace problems. Varieties of arbitration clauses and the status of awards are also explored. Students analyze research, prepare, and present cases in mock arbitration hearings.
This course uses a political economy framework to explore and compare countries’ systems of labor relations, drawing from at least three continents. It analyzes the diverse approaches to the structure of twenty-first century labor law and social policy. It focuses on the role of organized labor in the global economy, patterns of breakdown in the enforcement of labor and employment law, and union and nonunion political and bargaining responses.
This course addresses local manifestations of global problems confronting society, workers, and the labor movement. Students will cooperatively analyze issues, propose potential solutions, and engage in activities or practices that address globally driven local issues. Students will identify governmental, non-governmental, and charitable organizations that aid in ameliorating local problems. As a final project, students will design collaborative solutions based on our contemporary global situation in which work is characterized by flexibility, insecurity, and geographic mobility.
This course focuses on selected topics in collective bargaining and will include readings and discussions on workplace issues that may be remedied through the collective bargaining process. A research paper is usually required.
This course covers practical and theoretical perspectives on strategic planning, budgeting, and organizational decision making. It addresses the needs and problems of union leaders by studying organizational change, staff development, and cohesiveness within a diverse workforce. This course may be repeated for up to 3 credits with department approval.
This course examines the relationship between religion and the labor movement as it has developed in the United States over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyze the approach taken by religious institutions concerning workers’ issues and assess the tradition in which workers of faith connect to more secular concerns for social and economic justice.
This course examines various perspectives on the origin, development, and goals of organized labor. Theories include those that view the labor movement as a business union institution, an agent for social reform, a revolutionary force, a psychological reaction to industrialization, a moral force, and an unnecessary intrusion.
This course introduces students to the complex realities of Latinos in the United States. Focusing on the topics of work and migration, the course explores how labor and work drive the migration process through the active recruitment of Latino immigrants by U.S. companies searching for workers who will accept lower wages & poor working conditions and includes the search for work on the part of Latino people whose homelands and economies have been controlled, distorted, and devastated to serves the interests of U.S. corporations and military actions.
This course explores the paradox between issues of diversity and income inequality in contemporary society and provides a critical focal point for examining the way in which claims for diversity and mounting inequality are interrelated. The continued and expanding inequality in American society despite expanding initiatives to address racial, gender, and ethnic inequality suggests the need to dive more deeply into political debates addressing inequality and its impact on employment and workers in the US through the critical examination of cause and effect of long-term inequality, benefits and limits of diversity policies, and identification of competing strategies to address these issues.
This course provides a historical overview of the impact and interplay of class, race, and gender on shaping U.S. labor markets, organizations, and policies. It examines union responses and strategies for addressing class, race, and gender issues.
This course provides an overview of work-family policy in the US and other high-income countries, comparing and contrasting the problems and solutions experienced by working people who are caring for family members. This course takes the view that we will be a happier and healthier society if we find ways to make these two spheres compatible. This is an introductory interdisciplinary analysis of how explicit and implicit policies impose stress and impossible roles on mothers, fathers, care-givers of all kinds, and low-income parents in particular.
The Industrial Workers of the World (known as the IWW or <em>the Wobblies</em>) represented an alternative to the conservative and legalistic tradition in US trade unions. Organized in 1905, it spearheaded labor organization among workers left out of the craft-unionist American Federation of Labor. Before it was effectively destroyed as a labor union due to extreme repression during the First World War, the IWW brought labor organization to sectors as diverse as northwestern lumberjacks, California migrants, Eastern immigrant textile workers, and African American dock workers. Although its peak years ended around 1920 (it still exists as an organization) it “spirit” remains. Not only is the anthem of the US labor movement “Solidarity Forever” an IWW song, the IWW influenced the organization of the CIO unions during the 1930s, and the United Farm Workers Union in the 1960s.
This course explores “big box” retail stores and their impact on labor and local communities. The course examines how big box stores affect economics, environment, and the workforce and the ways in which a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back.
In this compressed course participants will learn about the roles, expectations and protections for essential workers during a pandemic. The definition of an essential worker, protections and risk factors will be explored and discussed. Guiding constructs include health equity, the precautionary principle and total worker health. Participants will explore definitions of standard and non-standard employment and learn about the challenges and consequences for the health and safety of workers. The course will conclude with case descriptions regarding the tools used by labor and outcomes for workers. Participants will identify priority action steps to protect essential workers and policies that link with structures impacting health.
This course provides an overview of the field of women/ gender and development in low-income nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and will cover the main debates in this field, including the ways in which gender relations within households and communities affect women's employment and working conditions,
the differential impact of globalization on women and men in agriculture, the informal sector, and the formal labor force, health issues, population control, climate change, and migration as seen through a gender lens, and effects of global financial crises on women.
Prior learning assessment (PLA): This course involves PLA credit to be earned for equivalent college-level knowledge gained from previous work experience, military training, or community engagement and showcased in a comprehensive portfolio through written or digital reflections documenting competencies gained through prior learning experiences. Student work is certified/approved for credit by a faculty committee.
This course uses historical, analytical, and comparative perspectives to examine labor movements and labor relations in industrial societies. It also emphases interactions between unions and political organizations, national labor policies, the resolution of workplace problems, the organization of white-collar employees, and the issues of worker control and codetermination.
This course applies classroom knowledge in the field. L420 may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
This course focuses on the study of research design, methods, techniques, and procedures applicable to research problems in labor studies.
This course can be used as a classroom seminar or directed reading course. It addresses current issues, historical developments, and other labor-related concerns. Topics may vary each semester.
This course explores the political limits placed on working class power in the United States over time and its effect on workers and their organizations. An essential part of the course will focus on the different ways in which power and class intersect in the American political structure and where socioeconomic limits are transformed into political constraints. Using the American political structure as the back drop, students will examine basic concepts of power and how concepts of power translate into practical political boundaries that must be overcome if labor is to grow and expand its influence in the American political process. Essential for this discussion is the debate of how power is exercised in American society, power in our discussion is real, with deep rooted political implications and not simply an exercise of understanding how far we have come from the democratic premises of the country’s founders.
This is a variable credit course. L495 may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours. Students arrange to study with an individual labor studies faculty member, designing a course of study to suit their individual and varied needs and interests. The contract might include reading, directed application of prior course work, tutorials, or internships. Competencies are assessed through written papers, projects, reports, or interviews.
This course uses historical, analytical, and comparative perspectives to examine labor movements and labor relations in industrial societies. It also emphases interactions between unions and political organizations, national labor policies, the resolution of workplace problems, the organization of white-collar employees, and the issues of worker control and codetermination.