Labour Studies is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary program housed in the Social Sciences at McMaster established in 1976.

quote:

---

Students pursuing a degree in Labour Studies will be exposed to an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to give them a broad critical understanding of labour in society. Each programme of study offers students a diverse mix of practical knowledge, theory and history. Course material ranges from the medieval roots of modern labour markets to discussions of how to deal with the problems created by globalization. Students may choose to debate what form unions should take in the future or learn how unions are recognized and their obligations to bargain. Often students use their optional courses to specialize in one of the Social Sciences, most often Sociology, Political Science or Economics.

---

First Year

LABR ST 1A03 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CANADIAN LABOUR MOVEMENT
An examination of the impact of economic, social, cultural and political factors on the historical evolution, structure and actions of the Canadian working class and labour movement.

ECON 1B03 INTRODUCTORY MICROECONOMICS
An introduction to the method and theory of microeconomics, and their application to the analysis of contemporary economic problems.

Three first-term electives (Women's Studies would be helpful. So would psychology, sociology, political science, social work or a Humanities.)

LABR ST 1C03 VOICES OF WORK, RESISTANCE AND CHANGE
An examination of how work is shaped by gender, race, class and culture in a global world; how workplace cultures of community and resistance are built; and their effect on our experience of work.

ECON 1BB3 INTRODUCTORY MACROECONOMICS
An introduction to the method and theory of macroeconomics, and their application to the analysis of contemporary economic problems.

Three second-term electives (Women's Studies would be helpful. So would psychology, sociology, political science, social work or a Humanities.)

Second Year

LABR ST 2A03 UNIONS
Examines unions' structure, internal decision making and economic, political and social environment. Students explore collective bargaining, political action, union democracy, diversity and renewal by simulating internal union life and participating in a union convention.

LABR ST 2C03 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
An examination of political, sociological and economic explanations of labour behaviour in industrial society. The focus will be on attempts to explain why labour has tended to organize as well as the different strategies which labour has pursued to achieve its goals.

LABR ST 2E03 WORKING IN THE 21ST CENTURY: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES
An examination of how technology, government regulation and social and political activism influence how work is organized in the 21st century.

At least three of:

COMMERCE 2BA3 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
The central objective of this course is to develop an understanding of human behaviour in organizations with a view toward effective management of such behaviour.

LABR ST 2B03 SOCIAL WELFARE I: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Purpose, values underlying development of social welfare programs; Canada's social security system in historical perspective.

LABR ST 2BB3 SOCIAL WELFARE: ANTI-OPPRESSIVE POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN SOCIAL WORK
Exploration and analysis of systematic patterns of oppression, their relationships to social policies and practice and the implications for social work through a variety of instruction including experiential exercises. Topics could include: race, gender, disability, sexual orientation.

LABR ST 2G03 LABOUR AND GLOBALIZATION
An examination of key themes in the political economy of contemporary globalization with particular emphasis on implications for worklife, working class politics and democracy. An introduction to major international economic institutions and processes associated with globalization and emerging forms of labour internationalism that contest globalization.

WOMEN ST 2A03 HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
An introduction to the growing national and international discussion of human rights, exploring the value and limitations of universal rights, equality under the law and social justice.

Four half-year electives (see above)

Third year

COMMERCE 4BC3 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
A survey of the nature, determinants, and impact of collective bargaining in Canada. Both the procedural and substantive aspects of collective bargaining will be studied.

At least three of:

LABR ST 3A03 ECONOMICS OF LABOUR MARKET ISSUES
This course applies economic analysis to issues of importance in the labour market. Topics vary and may include: women in the Canadian labour market, discrimination in hiring and promotion, unemployment, job loss and workplace closing, work sharing.

LABR ST 3B03 ECONOMICS OF TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOUR
Topics will include the economics of the labour market, the impact of trade unions on the labour market, economic theories of strikes, trade unions and the state.

LABR ST 3G03 ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING AND WORK ORGANIZATION
Analysis of transformations in work organization and labour markets in selected advanced capitalist societies; evaluation of labour strategies in the context of neoliberalism and globalization.

COMMERCE 4BD3 SETTLEMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES
The nature and the role of industrial conflict as well as the techniques which have been developed to control the incidence of conflict in union-management situations.

(If offered) LABR ST 3C03 LABOUR LAW AND POLICY
An analysis of the concepts and fundamentals of Canadian labour law and an analysis of Canadian labour policy.

(If offered) LABR ST 3D03 OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
An analysis of issues and problems associated with occupational health and safety in Canada and other industrialized countries. Topics will be examined from social, political, economic, legal and medical perspectives

(If offered) LABR ST 3E03 WOMEN, WORK AND UNIONISM
An examination of the historical and contemporary relations between women and work, and women and unionism. Topics will include the evolution and structure of the gender division of labour, women and the labour market, and the relationship of women to the labour movement.

(If offered) LABR ST 3W03 TECHNOLOGIES AT WORK: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
An inquiry based course exploring the evolution of work, how workplaces are organized in relation to technologies today, and the possible impact of technology on work in the future. It will explore the nature of work in manufacturing, the service sector and the public sector.

Six half-year electives

What an excellent programme!

I suppose McMaster was the first to offer this. Not surprising. Hamilton was the original labour heartland of Ontario. Allan Studholme was the first independent labour representative elected to the Ontario legislature. A skilled stove-mounter, Studholme became actively involved in the emerging trade union movement. In 1906, in the wake of the bitter Hamilton Street Railway strike, he ran as an independent working-class candidate in Hamilton East. Victorious in this and three subsequent elections, he sat as the lone labour representative in the legislature for almost thirteen years until his death in 1919. Despite his political isolation, Studholme worked tirelessly to promote the interests of working-class men and women and, through his principled stands, he help popularize such major reforms as the eight hour day, workmen's compensation the minium wage and women's suffrage.

He did not live to see Walter Rollo become the first Labour MPP to be Ontario's Minister of Labour, elected from Hamilton West in 1919, although he would not have been surprised: Rollo had missed joining him by only 40 votes in a 1914 by-election.

One of the few accomplishments of the Farmer-Labour government was the Minimum Wage Act and the appointment of a Minimum Wage Board which could set minimum wages for women, industry by industry. The two labour members of the five-member board were Mr. H. G. Fester from Hamilton, serving as secretary to the Trades and Labor Council there, and Margaret Stephen, a labour representative from the garment workers who worked in the Carhartt factory in Hamilton. Interestingly, the National Council of Women of Canada had a voice: Mrs. Lydia Parsons, secretary of the NCWC, was the female employer representative. As her husband had deserted her and their children in 1915, she needed the per diem honoraria paid to board members.

[ 14 June 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

I'm taking Public Administration and Governance right now (very part-time) at Ryerson, and I think they have a few labour courses you can take as electives too, which I'm really looking forward to taking.

babble thread on Educational Sources

Labour Studies program thread at EnMasse

Athabaska Open University Labour Studies Major

And for real radicals, there is always ...

The Communist University. The CeeYou (my invented term) is connected with the South African CP, I think. It's not the Lenin School, but the price is right.

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by triciamarie:
Short of the full degree there is also a certificate program you can do.

---

quote:

---

700 Work, Workers and their Workplaces

720 Labour Markets, the State and Inequality

730 Work and Democracy in the Global Society

760 Social Justice, Work & Society

---

In my decades in the labour movement, I've never met any union activist that actually had done one of these. Nor did I ever take such a course. I have definitely met young management L.R. folks who did.

Maybe I'm just behind the times. I still believe in learning on the job, then going and reading or taking a course to clarify issues that need handling, then back to the job, etc.

ETA: I should clarify I guess that I am not at all referring above to union training programs, including those offered by the FTQ, CSN, CLC, etc. Many unions offer broader-based histories and overviews of labour, even courses on basics of economics, how to read a balance sheet, besides all the practical stuff (grievance handling, H&S, WCB / CSST, arbitration, bargaining, handling harassment and discrimination issues, too many to list).

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

Bosses, of course, have all sorts of publicly subsidized programs, from Commerce facilities to Management Studies, to Industrial Relations programs, and so on. The point of view of the boss is treated, in our society and post secondary institutions, as the "objective" scientific point of view. But it is crystal clear that programs that teach students about "managing" staff, public relations and propaganda, marketing and advertising, labour "relations", and so on, will be decidedly different in their teaching, even if the same subject matter is covered, from a program that teaches about the history of the working class, Health and Safety issues, Collective Bargaining and Labour Law, and so on.

Of course, such programs will never have the institutional support of Commerce faculties, orthodox economists, and so on. That's capitalism for you and it is hardly a surprise. The wonder is that there are ANY such programs that look at production from a view other than complete slavish subservience to the boss, that there are are ANY historians of the working class, and so on.

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

These programs were not particularly welcoming of class analysis or radical thought. As economist Michael Zweig points out the New Left never had any impact in those programs - the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA) was the only academic organization in the social sciences that never had any radical caucus.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
Funny thing is Yates told me he thought that "working class studies" seemed like another silly academic exercise to avoid dealing with real workers.

---

Well... is he right?

It's not my place to judge, given that I know nothing about university programs or academic scenes. All I know is (as I said) I've never met anyone on the union side in the real world that followed such a program. But maybe that's our weakness?

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

Women's studies is, as far as I know, still a specific area of study in post-secondary institutions. So, too, is Native Studies. Why shouldn't there be Labour Studies as well?

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:

Women's studies is, as far as I know, still a specific area of study in post-secondary institutions. So, too, is Native Studies. Why shouldn't there be Labour Studies as well?

---

Maybe there should be. But answer my question. Who will these programs be addressed to? Surely not workers. Who then??

ETA: All right, let me make my point more explicit.

Women's Studies = (mostly) women studying.

Native Studies = (mostly) natives studying.

Workers' Studies = (mostly) studying workers.

Get my point?

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:
I've never met anyone on the union side in the real world that followed such a program.

---

McMaster's list of past speakers and visiting speakers are all union-side.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
The one at the U of Manitoba was set up as an interdisciplinary area of studies, much as Women's Studies or Native Studies were set up as interdisciplinary programs. I think most were set up under the protective arm of History departments. U of M was different, as it was under the Economics Department.

---

A good balance?

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
It's not clear to me that what group of people a degree program (or Major, etc.) is marketed to should play all that important a role in evaluating the usefulness of such a program. That's not really an academic criteria, is it?

---

No, it's not an academic criterion at all.

It may be a brilliant excellent wonderful program. Best in the world. Progressive and useful. But what kind of people take it and what do they do in life?

For example, let's say there were a brilliant academically astounding and progressive Women's Studies program, but you did a survey over 5 years and found that only men took the program. Would it still be a "Women's Studies" program?

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:
In my decades in the labour movement, I've never met any union activist that actually had done one of these. Nor did I ever take such a course. I have definitely met young management L.R. folks who did.

---

I majored in Labour Studies at McMaster University and, while I went there straight out of high school, a substantial portion of the class were "mature" students who had actual working class day jobs as industrial or service workers or tradespeople. Many of them were also union activists. Among the younger students, there was a mix. Some were business-types who were clearly there to know the enemy (or who switched from Business to Labour Studies because they couldn't hack the finance and accounting courses that were required for a straight Bachelor of Commerce degree.) But there were also a lot of more progressive students, many of whom themselves came from a working class background.

For me, after finishing my degree, I went to law school and became a union-side labour lawyer. My wife, who I met in the program, has worked in and out of the labour movement for several years now. I know some others who went into academia. I also know quite a few who went into management. I'd like to think that even they have ended up as "better" managers (i.e. more sensitive to workers' interests and concerns) as a result of their education.

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

But I said I've never met any union activist (I mean, like, a worker, a union member, not a former worker or a pro-worker professional) who had taken one of these programs. It doesn't sound as if you have either.

I'm not trying to make some huge point here. If the point of these programs is to train professionals in labour law or labour relations - either union- or management-side - that's great. It's just that it would be nice to see programs geared to workers who remain workers and use these programs for the benefit of workers.

Kind of like women's studies, native studies, Afro-American studies - does anyone out there get what I'm talking about?

Or is there a different kind of issue at work - that it's easier for some individuals to change their social class than it is to change their sex or race or colour, and is that what makes these types of programs not comparable in the way I'm trying to compare them?

Obviously, all of the younger students were looking for some sort of "job" at the end of the program, and many of the "mature" students were also looking to "move up" from their current positions, either into union staff positions or into management. But even if that sort of "professional advancement" were the only accomplishment of the program (it is not), I think you would agree to me that this would still be a worthwhile thing.

If you are interested in programs that focus more exclusively on current, on-the-job workers, you might look into the CLC's Labour College (note, program currently under review), the AFL-CIO's George Meany Center or UW Madison's School for Workers).

ETA: I think I see the broader point you are trying to get at. I don't have time to respond now but will get back to it. I just wanted to clarify that my actual experience is different than yours, i.e. I do know or have known of a lot of union/working class "activists," even as I believe that you would define them, who took labour studies courses at McMaster.

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

But despite the name of the Centre these are what are normally called skills development programmes rather than education; both less intensive and less academic. One-week, two-week and four-week programmes, mostly one-week. One step up from these are the certificate programmes at McMaster and elsewhere. Two steps up are the BA programmes.

An interesting question would be: how many people get a Labour Studies degree from McMaster by part-time study?

[ 15 June 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

ETA: Good question about the part-time vs full-time students. I don't know, maybe its worth an email to the department to see if they'll provide their stats?

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

quote:

---

The best labor studies programs like to think of themselves as activist-oriented--firmly grounded in the gritty world of workers. They don't usually find themselves at the center of high-profile political disputes. But in Sacramento cloakrooms, where lobbyists normally whisper blandishments into legislators' ears, the University of California's labor studies program is now being discussed in language once reserved for reds, and worse. The program, lobbyists say, not only organized meetings to stop the recall of then-Governor Gray Davis, but last summer "union thugs" supposedly even left those meetings to beat up recall petition circulators.

The accusations sound pretty wild, even considering California's usual election histrionics, but they're more than just overheated rhetoric. It's payback time in Sacramento. When newly elected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unilaterally imposed draconian budget cuts on the state just before Christmas, he wiped out this year's remaining funding for the Institute for Labor and Employment. If he does the same thing with next year's appropriation in March, the institute will be destroyed.

The current set of charges are the latest in a long effort to eliminate the ILE once and for all. Behind them is a political alliance between the state's Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC, the powerful lobby for nonunion construction companies) and the Pete Wilson wing of the state's Republican Party, which has retaken the governor's mansion.

The ABC in particular has been gunning for the ILE for two years, since it conducted a survey in 2001 of "project labor agreements" (or PLAs)--arrangements in which wages, benefits and union status are hammered out before work begins on major construction projects. The ILE published its findings in a working paper. This sounds pretty innocuous, but PLAs are a big roadblock to the growth of nonunion construction. Builders are so incensed about them, and so powerful, that the agreements were actually banned by President Bush as one of his first acts in office (facing Congressional opposition, he later allowed agreements for then-current projects to continue, but prohibited PLAs on new federal projects).

Labor studies programs around the country are watching what is happening to the ILE in California with trepidation. Conservative foundations have been orchestrating a national attack on labor studies. If the opponents of the ILE prevail, activist-oriented programs in Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri and other states will be next on the right-wing hit list.

The controversy raises a fundamental question about labor rights--should joining a union be protected and encouraged by law and public policy, or are unions just a narrow private interest? At the beginning of the builders' campaign in California, Steve Friar, executive director of the San Diego-Imperial County Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, wrote an op-ed in Riverside's North County Times in which he asked,"Unions are private organizations, so why are taxpayers required to cough up money for union propaganda to be filtered throughout the state?" Well, because encouraging collective bargaining has been public policy since 1936. Besides, the same university spends many times that tax money promoting the goals of another private institution--business.

Yet the question indicates how far public discourse has moved since the National Labor Relations Act became the nation's basic law giving unions legal status. The act's preamble holds that employees should (not can) band together to bargain. To accept Friar's argument, that social goal has to be deemed a "private" special interest. In fact, this change in public consciousness is one important objective of the attack on labor studies.

There's another, unspoken assumption as well. Every economic policy adopted by Congress, and by every state, assumes that the proper purpose of economic activity is the creation of private profit. In the current political climate, profit-making is even equated with democracy. Business schools treat increasing productivity--that is, the rapid and efficient accumulation of profit--not only as economically necessary but as a patriotic duty.

"Can you imagine a business administration program that doesn't take for granted the need to make profits?" asks Elaine Bernard, who heads Harvard's Trade Union Program, "or that doesn't want to talk to business leaders, or place its students in companies?" But when a labor program assumes that workers should strive to raise wages and improve conditions, it's considered selfish--against the public interest.

---

David Bacon, "Class Warfare," The Nation, January 12, 2004.

The labour studies program at Indiana University, another state-funded institution, faced similar problems following the election of a Republican governor in 2004. Link: Labour Start article.

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

To answer the question[s] unionist was posing- I think there is a simple answer that was probably already implicit by now.

University programs are geared to people that are going to get degrees; and will go on to apply them in some professional or business or academic career, even if they have little or no idea what that career might be when they entered a labour studies program or just took courses there.

The fact that some of the mature students are workers taking courses would change the tenor of the courses, but they are peripheral to what the program is about. Either they will just continue taking the odd course and stay where they are, or they will 'switch tracks' get a degree and go on to work for either unions or management. Point being that they are either there as vistors and will remain that way, or they are no different than a straight out of high school.

I am myself someone who was first a worker, then pursued a full time 'worker-oriented course of studies' [in 'practical stuff' rather than the usual fare of acamic labour studies], then went back to being a worker.

And I can't remember a single other person who has done that. I didn't have a plan. I've never put the worker oriented part of the studies to much practical use. I don't think there is really a place for such an animal. Hard to generalize from a case of one, but the fact of the rarity alone has to mean something.

I know of one institute at a university whose programing is aimed at people in and remaining in the labour movement. The courses are not part of a degree program. Most of the faculty have cross postings and give occassional courses in academic departments that bring in some students from the meat and potatoes union focused side of the program.

That institute is at University of Oregon. I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple of others similar in the US. None in Canada, and the exceptional circumstances that would foster such an animal are a lot less likely in Canada. [I'm struggling to remember the name of the Oregon outfit. If I don't post it later and you want to know, PM me.]

Not surprisingly- the content of those institute courses, workshops, seminars and conferences is more like what is done at union run colleges and training programs. I never thought about it before, but that content is probably overall designed to supplement what people can get at through union education programs.

It has been over 20 years since I was even around that academic and semi-academic world; but I did not expect that the basics had changed, and what robbie dee says confirms that.

I think it is fair to say that at least a lot of labour study professors do not see what thay do as ideal, nor was it what thay had in mind when they started out. The ivory tower is not conducive to people who want to be there but not be bound by its limits. Very few break out of those bounds- and I personally would not include as successes the few 'public intellectuals' that many of us know of through their writings.

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

quote:

---

In 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 5,840 people nationwide suffered fatal injuries on the job, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Monday by the AFL-CIO. Almost 10 percent of the deaths were in California, and Latinos nationwide were 25 percent more likely to be killed in the workplace than workers overall, the report found.

"One of the reasons there's a sharp increase is that Latino workers are in the most dangerous industries and jobs and they're often exploited by employers, with little or no protection," said Rachele Huennekens, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO.

---

A more recent report can be found at 'Death on the Job' Report, 2008, AFL-CIO

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:
But I said I've never met any union activist (I mean, like, a worker, a union member, not a former worker or a pro-worker professional) who had taken one of these programs. It doesn't sound as if you have either.

---

If my unionized day job were at McMaster instead of Ryerson, I'd probably take that degree.

Many full-time students have had part-time jobs or even come back to school after working full-time jobs. Many full-time and part-time students have jobs on the side. Many universities' students who work on campus are unionized.

Why would you assume that university students are not "workers"?

Also, it sounds like this sort of degree would be a good one for people who want to work for unions as staffers. (And union staffers are workers - generally unionized themselves by other unions.)

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Anyway, a scholarship fund was started in Michelle's honour, The Michèle Pujol Scholarship Fund, for Women's Studies students at the University of Victoria who are low-income, lesbian, women of colour, and/or Native women. There is even a room at the Student Union named after her ... a rather unheard of honour coming from students. An ENTIRE issue of Atlantis on sexual economics was dedicated to her; her scholarship on feminist economics, for example, was simply outstanding.

This is the sort of outstanding individual that Labour Studies attracted.

Obit: M. Pujol (just do a search for her name)

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:

Many full-time students have had part-time jobs or even come back to school after working full-time jobs. Many full-time and part-time students have jobs on the side. Many universities' students who work on campus are unionized.

Why would you assume that university students are not "workers"?

---

All that is good. Most university students are "workers" while studying. This is far from my point, which is:

How many graduates from such programs return to working-class jobs?

quote:

---

Also, it sounds like this sort of degree would be a good one for people who want to work for unions as staffers. (And union staffers are workers - generally unionized themselves by other unions.)

---

Union staffers are often unionized - but calling them "workers" conflates many things - it depends what kind of staffers:

A. Most staffers are business agent / servicing type reps, as well as organizers. Every one I've ever met "rose through the ranks" in some fashion. I suppose you could call them workers. I've never met one who graduated from such a program. Maybe that will change in the future, but honestly, the only way I see it changing is via a union somehow financing a worker to go through such a program and come back to the fold after - an expensive and unlikely proposition.

One of the most tiresome questions I ever have to deal with when talking about the humanities (and I recognize that this is not what unionist is trying to say, but I think that it applies to this question) is 'well, what is it good for?' The implication is that a philosophy student should be able to go out and get a job as a philosopher, and if she can't, she should consider something else. When, in reality, philosophy students go on to become lawyers, doctors, business owners, media workers, and any number of occupations. A humanities degree teaches you how to communicate, how to think critically and skeptically, how to formulate your thoughts and express them in an articulate manner. Well, that's the idea anyway. I would think that the more people who are taught to consider law, culture and social practice from a labour perspective, the better off we would be. Any leftist should support that.

I'm also a little unsure as to what you mean by 'worker'. Does it include teachers, for example? I think I'd like a few high school teachers with a labour study background. Women's studies isn't supposed to make people identify primarily as the object of study, it is meant to offer an alternative perspective to how the world is currently in operation. In short, it produces feminists, not women. Likewise, the goal of LS should be to produce unionists not union members.

quote:

---

Originally posted by KenS:
University programs are geared to people that are going to get degrees; and will go on to apply them in some professional or business or academic career, even if they have little or no idea what that career might be when they entered a labour studies program or just took courses there. ...

I've never put the worker oriented part of the studies to much practical use. I don't think there is really a place for such an animal. Hard to generalize from a case of one, but the fact of the rarity alone has to mean something. ...

I think it is fair to say that at least a lot of labour study professors do not see what thay do as ideal, nor was it what thay had in mind when they started out. The ivory tower is not conducive to people who want to be there but not be bound by its limits. Very few break out of those bounds- and I personally would not include as successes the few 'public intellectuals' that many of us know of through their writings.

---

Ken, I just noticed your lengthy post and wanted to say "thank you" - it captures and confirms perfectly my nagging feeling about these programs.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Catchfire:
One of the most tiresome questions I ever have to deal with when talking about the humanities (and I recognize that this is not what unionist is trying to say, but I think that it applies to this question) is 'well, what is it good for?'

---

You're absolutely 100% correct, Catchfire - that is not what I'm trying to say. What I'm actually trying to say is: "Why can't workers go to university in this supposedly affluent society and take humanities, arts, philosophy, history, etc. - as well as 'workers' studies'?"

I (we) want it all. Labour Studies primarily populated by non-workers is a symptom of the far bigger problem, isn't it?

quote:

---

I'm also a little unsure as to what you mean by 'worker'. Does it include teachers, for example?

---

Yes, salaried teachers are "workers" - but see my comments above about union staffers.

But if such programs produce only or primarily teachers, there's a problem - isn't there? I can imagine that the vast majority of Classics program graduates (Latin, Greek, whatever) go on to become teachers. But if that's the intent of "Labour Studies", then it's not of huge value to workers, because in what context will they benefit from these teachers?

quote:

---

I think I'd like a few high school teachers with a labour study background.

---

Sure, but I'm not sure what that really changes in life. Teachers have a curriculum to follow, and it doesn't include anything remotely resembling labour studies.

quote:

---

Likewise, the goal of LS should be to produce unionists not union members.

---

I don't think the "goal" should be to produce either one of the above. I think the goal should be to allow people to understand the manifold issues, history, theory etc. relating to working-class issues - and these programs must be available to and attractive to workers, otherwise their nature will be fundamentally different. Like an Aboriginal Studies program populated by settlers.

quote:

---

That said, what does it say about a Labour Studies program if it remains unavailable (either through time constraints our financial considerations) or unappealing to working-class folk or union members? This is a problem of academia in general, I think, and the class divide between 'colleges' and 'university' is a discredit to both sides. One, because it provokes an anti-intellectualism towards powerful subversive thought, and simultaneously paints trade work as somehow less important or less difficult than work that requires an egghead degree.

---

Well, I agree with that entirely.

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

All of that in turn would fit into an ethic of sustainability- part of which is moving away from consumerism and people investing themselves instead into everything under the sun.

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
What tiresome pessimism and social capitulation. You need to get out more, unionist.

---

Pardon?

quote:

---

Labour Studies primarily populated by non-workers is a symptom of the far bigger problem, isn't it?

---

Exactly.

Assuming the limits of what universities are- these programs are great. They are better than noting.

quote:

---

Originally posted by KenS:
They are better than noting.

---

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Catchfire:
Which is worse? The fact that 'workers' can't access a university education, or that they can't access a university labour studies program? Aren't you aiming at the wrong target here?

---

I don't want to answer for Ken, but I'll give my own answer.

The worst, of course, is that university education is not available to the working class.

That point should be kept in mind (high up in mind) in assessing the place and value of university labour studies programs.

It would seem strange to have a whole thread about workers' studies programs without reflecting on the fact that most workers can't access them.

Maybe that means that university isn't the best vehicle for delivering such programs? Just asking.

Hey, I've got an idea - how about a three-year labour studies program in CÉGEP? Could be combined with the current trades-type programs, so you get both job skills and a working-class perspective out of it.

For those of you who don't know what CÉGEP is, it's a sort of post-secondary college system with 2-year university-entrance programs and 3-year vocational programs. Tuition is free, of course.

Not a solution, but maybe a start?

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

quote:

---

Which is worse? The fact that 'workers' can't access a university education, or that they can't access a university labour studies program?

---

Different point.

The point would be that universities are only relevant to working class people if you intend to leave the world you are in now.

ETA: To Ken: but that only assumes, or gives up on the idea, that university degrees have no use for the working class. This is absolutely untrue. A humanities degree is good for everyone for the reasons I mentioned above, no matter what your vocation. In fact, my sister-in-law is currently an electrician with an Honours degree in Women's Studies from UofT.

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

But those are indiviudal dynamics and individual decisions.

Its a different point that universities are only for working class people to leave what they do now. The fact that there are a [very] few of us that do go back to what we did before is not a contradiction of what the institution is and is not for.

I actually know a number of people with the trajectory of worker, then student who gets a degree, back to being a worker. In fact, my father beat me to it.

But like I said, I can't remember another person besides myself who pursued a degree in a course of studies rooted in being a worker, and then went back to being a worker.

Getting a university degree is a great thing to do. It can expand anyone- and is nore certain to do so for the kind of person who would go back to their old work and therefore is obviously not there putting in time for getting a Career.

But that degree is not going to meld with anything you do in a working class job, or what you would do in the kind of union member servicing jobs unionist referred to where people come out of the ranks.

People can say that what you did as a student does not meld all that well with professional careers either- but it's nothing like the radical disjuncture between the academy and a 'regular working class job'.

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

But as long as they have to beg and debase themselves to corporations to get funding, see what the chances are of that taking place. (At my old school, buildings were named after great scientists and thinkers: Rutherford, Bohr, etc. Now they're named after engineers who hit it big on the venture capitalist market and had big egos.)

[ 16 June 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

Yours is on the ideological and cultural role of the university, and what effects that has.

Mine would be that the very constitutuion of the university just makes it a place pretty much totally unfit for workers as workers who would want to study the world of their work.

quote:

---

No, not [a difference in] focus. Approach perhaps. Your idea of the university is static: that it is a thing tel quel and can never change. It is not a place for workers now, and will never be a place for workers.

I think the university should be a dynamic place, a space of growth and becoming.

---

Not a difference in the approach. My idea of the university is not static and I already said something in the same spirit and vein:

quote:

---

the universities could be a different place within a 'lifelong learning' social commitment... and workers taking courses for general and applied-to-situation interests would be part of that.

---

And I think it is a difference in focus. You are talking at a higher level of generality.

First, with “a symptom of capitalist culture's ongoing discrediting of the trades and workers generally, as something an 'educated person' shouldn't consider pursuing”, etc on a general cultural/societal level.

And then more concretely with:

quote:

---

As such, it could include a place where labour study is useful for everyone who has a stake in it, including workers. The philosophy behind Women's studies, postcolonial studies, etc. is the same philosophy behind babble: we have a feminism forum, but the whole freakin' place should be feminist; so too with the university. It should already be a place for workers. Wouldn't a labour studies program be a good place to start?

---

quote:

---

madmax: There is no labour movement.

---

On the contrary, we have ...

quote:

---

CLC: The Canadian Labour Congress is the largest democratic and popular organization in Canada with over three million members. The Canadian Labour Congress brings together Canada's national and international unions, the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils.

---

The Canadian Labour Congress

and that is just the organized labour movement.

[ 17 June 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

Hamilton as the heartland of Ontario Labour may also explain why a young David Lewis tried running there.

In 1940 David Lewis, then aged only 30, raised in Montreal but living in Ottawa with his young family, first ran for parliament. He chose York West, which in those days was the whole of Etobicoke plus Swansea and a corner of York South - Weston. Then in 1945 he ran in Hamilton West, Walter Rollo's old seat.

In the 1948 Ontario election the CCF had won a stack of 11 seats in Toronto. But it had also won Hamilton Centre, Hamilton East and Wentworth. In 1949 the south part of Hamilton was moved into Wentworth federal riding where Lewis ran again, running a close third with 27% of the vote. (In 1950 he moved from Ottawa to Toronto and would not seek election again until 1962.)

[ 17 June 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

quote:

---

munroe: There is not a decent labour studies programme in B.C.

---

That's why I moved from BC to Manitoba 25 years ago. My choices were: U of M, McMaster, or Memorial.

BTW, here the current program at SFU: Centre for Labour Studies at SFU The SFU link provides the following list:

Algonquin College
http://www.algonquinc.on.ca/

Athabasca University
http://www.athabascau.ca/html/courses/list1.htm#lbst

Brock University
http://www.brocku.ca/registrar/undergrad/faculties/labr_studies.html

Carleton University
http://www.carleton.ca/

McGill University
http://www.management.mcgill.ca/

McMaster University
http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/

Queens University
http://qsilver.queensu.ca/sociology/

St Francis Xavier University
http://www.stfx.ca/

Laval University
http://www.ulaval.ca/sg/PR/C1/indexe.html

University of Manitoba
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/labour_studies/

University of Montreal
http://www.fas.umontreal.ca/ERI/

University of Ottawa
http://www.admin.uottawa.ca/english/programs/

University of Saskatchewan
http://www.commerce.usask.ca/departments/irob.shtml

University of Toronto
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/cir/

University of Windsor
http://www.uwindsor.ca/labour/

York University
http://www.yorku.ca/sosci/programs/ls.html

as well as a local program

quote:

---

CLC: The Canadian Labour Congress is the largest democratic and popular organization in Canada with over three million members. The Canadian Labour Congress brings together Canada's national and international unions, the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils.

---

That is membership.
I am speaking of a movement. Strength. Leadership.
Not weakness, numbers and being ineffectual.

Being large and asleep at the switch is not a movement or a leader with no followers is not a movement.

Unionization is in decline.

"Senatus Populus Que Romanus"

quote:

---

Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Is anyone posting on this thread involved in Labour Studies today? Comments? That would be helpful.

---

I'm involved - but unfortunately it's only courses within my union. I've taken some and I've even presented some - issues involving harassment and discrimination, accommodation, how to handle disciplinary matters, history of the Canadian union movement, and some stuff particular to Québec. The ones I took were useful - the ones I presented, well, you'd have to ask my audience.

quote:

---

And Maximus madmax was on about strength and leadership, so ...
Is anyone posting on this thread involved in Labour Studies today? Comments? That would be helpful

---

Perhaps you could expand on this for me.

LABR ST 2E03 WORKING IN THE 21ST CENTURY: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES
An examination of how technology, government regulation and social and political activism influence how work is organized in the 21st century.

Do you have knowledge of Labour Laws in different Provinces?

I am curious to know the differences between Labour Laws in Alberta and Ontario.

Does Alberta have a 60 work week provision similar to Ontarios?

Does Alberta have a proliferation of (Placement/temp..agencies/staffing solution) scumbags that abuse and take advantage of loopholes within the Employment Standards Act?

Is Labour Studies teaching current trends or trends from a decade ago?

quote:

---

madmax: I think that anyone who is interested in Labour Economics should take Labour Studies courses along with business courses and HR courses.

---

Just as some soldiers participated in the Labour Institutions course I was enrolled in, for the purpose of "knowing the enemy", so too it's probably useful for Labour Studies students to look at HR, Marketing and Advertising, Management Studies, and so on ... for the same reason but from the opposite point of view.

quote:

---

Originally posted by madmax:
Do you have knowledge of Labour Laws in different Provinces?

I am curious to know the differences between Labour Laws in Alberta and Ontario.

Does Alberta have a 60 work week provision similar to Ontarios?

---

I never sought a Labour Studies degree. But you don't need to get such a degree to get answers to specific questions like the ones you have asked. Go to www.canlii.org , choose a language, select Alberta Statutes, and enter "Employment Standards". You'll find sections 16-23 of Alberta's Employment Standards Code gives the equivalents to Ontario's Employment Standards Act's provision on hours of work.

No university degree is needed for answers to specific questions. As others have written above, degrees in humanities and social sciences are more about critical thinking than learning specific skills or answers to specific problems or questions. There are enough free links to legislation to look up specific legislation provisions to answer the questions you ask above. Labour Studies academic study should be followed for the big questions of work life and society.

[ 23 July 2008: Message edited by: Robo ]