POLITICS and LABOR MOVEMENTS

Prof. Christine Kelly Email: kellyc@wpunj.edu

POL 353 Office phone: x3430

William Paterson University Office: S340

Dept of Political Science Office Hrs: M W 11:00-12:00

& by appt.!

Course Description and Objectives:

This course is designed to introduce students to the theories, ideologies and practical developments of movements by and for working people in capitalist democracies with primary emphasis on the U.S. labor movement. In this course, we will explore founding ideologies of working class empowerment and investigate changing meanings of labor, labor value and freedom across time, gender, race, ethnicity and occupation. We will spend considerable time exploring the history of the AFL-CIO in relation to: 1) movements of working class people; 2) broader social movements; and 3) to government and business.. Both the heroines and heroes of American labor will be considered throughout. The course will conclude with an analysis of the impact of recent changes in AFL-CIO policy and how these changes relate and respond to macro-economic developments captured in the phrase Aglobalization.@

Required Texts:

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto (Signet edition)

Paul Buhle, Taking Care of Business (Monthly Review Press)

Upton Sinclair The Jungle (Banton Books)

Milkman & Wong, Voices from the Frontline: Organizing Immigrant Labor in L.A. (U. Cal.)

ALSO: A number of our Required Readings are in electronic format; some will be available through the library=s Electornic Reserves (indicated by an ER on syllabus) while others are on-line publications (indicated as either ebook, or OJ for on-line journal).

Electronic Reserves can be reached from any computer with internet access by typing: testweb1.wpunj.edu/library/reserves. Click on my name and our course and look for the reading.

Both the ebook and the on-line journal will be introduced to you in a required Information Technology session at the library during class hours on MON. Sept 10^th- Attendance is mandatory

Requirements and Assignments:

You are expected to have completed the assigned readings before coming to class. This course will emphasize your critical reading and writing skills, and will combine both lecture and discussion. Attendance and participation will be weighed. There will be a 4 page essay, an in-class midterm examination, and a final (8-10 page) paper on some aspect of labor and globalization. (Details later...)

Performance will be evaluated in approximately the following manner:

1. Attendance, Preparation and Participation......................15%

2.Short Paper........................................................................15%

3.Midterm.............................................................................30%

4.Final Paper.........................................................................40%

Readings and Assignments:

I. Labor, Value and Freedom

Week 1

Introduction (start Marx)

Week 2

MONDAY SEPT 10^th Meet in Library for Electronic Instruction. ATTENDANCE MANDATORY!!!

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto

Week 3

Stanley Engerman AIntroduction@ from Slavery, Serfdom and Labor (ebook)

Essay Assignment handed out.

Week 4

Robert J. Steinfeld, AChanging Legal Conceptions of Free Labor@(ibid) (ebook)

Week 5 ( Essay due Mon.)

Alice Kessler Harris, AThe Wage Conceived: Value and Need as Measures of a Woman=s Worth@ from A Woman=s Wage (ER)

FILM

II. History of American Labor Movements

Week 6

Mike Davis, AWhy the U.S. Working Class if Different@ from Prisoners of the American Dream (ER)

Week 7

Mother Jones, selections from Autobiography of Mother Jones (ER)

Michael Keith Honey, ASegregation, Racial Violence and Black Workers@ from Black Workers Remember (ER)

FILM

Week 8

remainder of film/ Midterm Review

IN-CLASS MIDTERM

(Start Upton Sinclair, The Jungle)

Week 9

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (whole book!!!)

Week 10 & Week 11

Paul Buhle, Taking Care of Business, (Introduction, Chapter One, Chapter Three & Conclusion)

Week 12

Sharlene Hesse-Biber, AA Brief History of Working Women@ from Working Women in America (ER, under POL 272)

Lois Gray, AWomen in Union Leadership@ from The American Woman: 2001-2002 (ER)

FILM

III. Labor and Globalization

Week 13

Milkman & Wong, Voices from the Frontline (whole book!)

Week 14

Naomi Klein, AThe Disgarded Factory@ from NO LOGO (ER)

Piven & Cloward, ANew Power Repertoires and Globalization in Politics & Society, v. 28, Sept. 2000 (OJ)

Week 15

Levi & Olson, [Seattle/WTO article] in Politics & Society, v. 28, Sept. 2000 (OJ)

FILM

FINAL EXAM DUE IN CLASS!!!!