Undergraduate Adviser: Brenda Cochrane
Associate Professors—Bonfield, Caulfield, Cochrane, Hossfeld, Mar
Assistant Professor—Rivera-Pinderhughes
Lecturers—Berry, Lannon, Levy, Russell
Minor in Labor Studies
Labor Studies courses combine broad perspectives with specific skills. Introductory courses provide a general knowledge about work, workers, and their organizations. Electives enable students to examine areas in greater depth. Individual and group research projects encourage students to develop skills through investigation of specific problems such as: obstacles to organizing among immigrant workers; labor management cooperation's impact on grievance-handling and collective bargaining; use of computer information systems in local union operations; corporate buyouts' effects on workers' job security; pressure of international competition on working and living standards domestically and abroad; and child care provision through union activity. In these and other problems, students are encouraged to do first-hand investigation by working directly with those involved.
Students are employed generally, and Labor Studies courses are offered usually in the evening. Advising is available both days and evenings, and students are informed periodically by letter of new developments. Overall, the Labor Studies Program aims to meet the needs of nontraditional working-adult students as well as of traditional day students.
Labor Studies instructors combine the analytical and the practical in their courses. Both regular SFSU faculty and practitioners with labor, government, and other organizations bring together experience for broad perspectives and expertise for specific skills. With the Labor Studies Advisory Board of unionists and others active in the Bay Area labor scene, instructors develop and teach courses reflecting immediate concerns and future goals. Instructors and the Advisory Board help students bridge the gap between university and the labor scene.
BACHELOR OF ARTS IN LABOR STUDIES
The Labor Studies major is organized into four tiers. The first tier, which includes LABR 250 and 300, provides a basic introduction to the field, including the range of topics and ways of studying those topics through the use of social science concepts and methodologies. The second tier builds upon this foundation in four areas: labor economics, labor and government, organizational theory and practice, and labor's relation to the larger society. The third tier, which is elective in nature, provides a way for the Labor Studies major to focus upon those areas of knowledge and skill directly related to his/her vocational objectives. The final tier, usually taken in the final semester before graduation, provides a career development seminar, vocationally-related internship, or field experience.
Courses for this program are listed in alphabetical sequence (see Labor Studies discipline in the Announcement of Courses section).
Tier I: Foundations Units LABR 250 Introduction to the Study of Labor 3 LABR 300 Researching Labor Issues 3 Total for Tier I 6 Tier II: Four Required Courses LABR 400 Union Structure and Adminis- tration 3 LABR 500 Labor and Government 4 ECON 510 Labor Economics* 3 One course selected from the following:** 3-4 HIST 474 History of Labor in the United States SS 343 Women and Work SOC 488 Industrial Sociology (4) Total for Tier II 13-14 Tier III: Vocationally Related Electives The student and his/her faculty adviser should work out a plan through which these fifteen units of electives will further the career objectives of the student.*** 15 Tier IV: Final Experience An internship with an appropriate labor-related organization or government agency, under the auspices of an appropriate course or A field study course, applying the knowledge and skills acquired in the Labor Studies program to the analysis of some appro- priate labor-related program, organiza- tion, government agency, event, etc., under the auspices of an appropriate course; e.g., SS 680, Field Course in Social Science, or LABR 699, Special Study. 3-4 Total for major 37-39*The requirement for ECON 510 may be met by the student offering six units of lower division work in labor economics and collective bargaining.
**Other courses dealing with the relationship between labor and the larger society may be acceptable upon approval of the program director.
***Students transferring from community colleges with work in labor studies may offer up to twelve units of lower division course work in labor studies toward the Tier III requirements.
Units LABR 250 Introduction to the Study of Labor 3 LABR 300 Researching Labor Issues 3 LABR 400 Union Organization and Adminis- tration 3 LABR 500 Labor and Government 4 ECON 510 Labor Economics 3 Electives on advisement 7 Total for minor 23
last modified June 23, 1995