Requirements (30 cr.)
*except L190, L199, L290 and L299
Courses consist of all LSTU-L100 and 200-level courses, except L190, L199, L290 and L299
This 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.
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 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.
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.
ToolsFaculty & Staff