POLS 249/SOC 266/HSTCMP 249:
Introduction to Labor Studies
University of Washington
Winter 2025
Instructor: Andrew Hedden, heddena@uw.edu (He/Him)
Class Meetings: Monday/Wednesday, 1:00-2:20 in Smith Hall, Room 120
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 2:30 – 3:30PM, or by appointment, in Smith Hall, Room 019, Harry Bridges Center Office (located in the basement, one floor below our classroom)
TAs and Sections:
- Josh Sturman, sturmanj@uw.edu: AB 9:30 AM - 10:20 AM, Raitt Hall, Room 116; AE 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM, Savery Hall, Room 156
- Mohammad Raied Arman, mrarman@uw.edu: AF 11:30 AM - 12:20 PM, Savery Hall, Room 156; AH 12:30 PM - 1:20 PM, Savery Hall, Room 166
Course Description
This course explores the history, ideas, and politics of working people, broadly conceived, through Labor Studies. Labor Studies is interdisciplinary and intersectional. Though focused primarily on U.S. history, we will discuss how and why work is performed, organized and divided in societies, across time and space, within different countries, and different industries, and along lines of race and gender and other forms of power. We will consider how labor occurs everywhere under many conditions - at home, in the workplace, waged and unwaged, organized and unorganized. And we will discuss the history and politics of labor movements, including but not limited to unions, and how such movements have fought against oppression and hierarchy based on race, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, nationality, ability and more, in their particularities and their many intersections.
Students will be graded on short writing assignments (including reading responses), participation in sections, a mid-term paper, a final exam, and a final paper.
This course is a foundational requirement for the Labor Studies Minor, and contributes to the Political Economy program of the Political Science major.
Readings
We will be reading two books this quarter: America is in the Heart: A Personal History by Carlos Bulosan (University of Washington Press, 2014; originally published 1943) and Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice by Jamie K. McCallum (Basic Books, 2022). In addition, we will read a number of various book chapters and essays, which will be provided electronically on Canvas.
This is a reading intensive course, and it is imperative that you come to lecture and discussion section having done all the readings. Readings will not simply summarize the content from lecture; the readings instead provide additional theories and evidence that you will use in your paper and exams. All non-text book readings will be available on Canvas, and all articles are available to UW students for free online (make sure to use the UW Library Proxy on your browser). In addition, you will often be able to find the readings by simply Googling the author and title.
Assignments and Grading
Students will be graded on the following:
- Section Participation (10%)
- Survey and Reading Responses (15%)
- Midterm Paper (20%)
- Research Paper (30%)
- Final Exam (25%)
Survey and Reading Responses. The first week of class, you will complete a short, five-minute on-line survey about your personal and family work history, and learning goals for the quarter. This information will help the instructors get to know the class better and relate course content to students’ experience. The collective results of the survey will be shared with the class during lecture, but personal information will not be recorded.
In addition, you will complete several regular Writing Responses. A Writing Response is two short paragraphs, typically between three and five sentences each, that requires you to discuss a reading, lecture, film, or guest speaker from the previous week. Specific prompts will be provided. You will submit your Writing Responses on Canvas.
Midterm Paper. Instead of a midterm exam, you will complete a Midterm Paper based on a one-hour interview with a worker. The paper must be submitted prior to class on Monday, February 3. Your paper should summarize your interview, and provide context about the worker and their job by incorporating three independent secondary sources. Sources can include both contemporary news articles and academic articles and books. The paper must have a minimum word count of 1,000 words. Further instructions will be provided, as well as suggested questions for the interview. You will submit your Midterm Paper on Canvas.
Research Paper. A Final Research Paper (with a strict limit of 10 double-spaced pages) is due on Wednesday, March 12 by 11:59 PM. Details of the Final Paper assignment, including paper topics and formatting instructions, will be provided.
Final Exam. The in-person final exam will cover all material from the course, and will test for students' knowledge of key topics, themes, and concepts. A study guide will be provided beforehand, along with a list of potential exam questions.
Plagiarism and AI Tools
Academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade for the course. Academic dishonesty is defined as cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, falsifying academic records, and any other act designed to avoid participating honestly in the learning process. Academic dishonesty also includes, but is not limited to, providing false or misleading information to receive a postponement or extension on a test or assignment, or the submission of essentially the same written assignment for two different courses without prior permission of the instructors.
The unauthorized use of artificial intelligence (AI) is a form of academic misconduct at UW. Tools that use AI and large language models to generate text—such as ChatGPT, GPT4, Bing Chat, and “Write with AI” in Google Docs—are prohibited in this course. The use of such tools to complete your assignments constitutes academic misconduct according to UW policy and may result in serious disciplinary action.
Religious Accommodations
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.
The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
Please utilize the University of Washington’s Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies as a resource. The Bridges Center supports students interested in the labor movement through the Labor Studies Minor, labor-related courses, paid internships, scholarships, research, events, and more.
Regular announcements about current Bridges Center opportunities will be made throughout the quarter. You can also learn more by visiting the Bridges Center website at labor.uw.edu, and by signing-up for the Center’s email list at labor.uw.edu/contact.
Week One - January 6 and 8, 2025
What is Labor Studies?
Readings:
- CrimethInc, “The Mythology of Work”
- Kim Kelly, “What a Labor Union Is and How It Works,” Teen Vogue
- Jenny Brown, "2024 in Review: Strikes and Organizing Score Gains, but Storm Clouds Loom," Labor Notes
Film:
- "Capitalism," Episode 3 of The 1619 Project
Assignments:
- Survey Response (Link to be provided)
Week Two - January 13 and 15, 2025
Witches, Slavery, and the History of Capitalism
Readings:
- Podcast: “The Surprising Backstory behind Witch Hunts and Reproductive Labor,” Scientific American (7 minutes, transcript provided)
- Bill Fletcher, Jr., “Race to Labor: Can Organized Labor Be an Agent of Social and Economic Justice?”
- Optional
- Podcast: “Witch Hunts and Enclosures: Bodies, Land and Women” (30 minutes, transcript provided)
- Video: Bill Fletcher, Jr., "Race and Class: The Ultimate Frontier" (1 hour, 6 minutes, no captions available)
- Video: Bill Fletcher, Jr., "Race and Labor: A More Just Economy" (1 hour, 24 minutes, captions available)
Assignments:
- Writing Responses
- MIDTERM PAPER INSTRUCTIONS: Interview a Worker
Guest Speaker:
- Sai Ahmed, Assistant Director, Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
Week Three - January 20 and 22, 2025
January 20 - NO CLASS, MLK DAY
Industrial Revolution, Settler Colonialism, and the Gilded Age
Week Four - January 27 and 29, 2025
Global Revolution, Immigration, and Racial Exclusion
Guest Speaker:
- April Sims, President, Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO
Week Five - February 3 and 5, 2025
The Origins of Today's Labor Law: The New Deal and the Rise of the CIO
Guest Speaker:
- Faye Guenther, President, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) 3000
Week Six - February 10 and 12, 2025
The Cold War, the “Treaty of Detroit,” the Golden Age of Capitalism, and the Civil Rights Movement
Guest Speaker:
- Madison Zack-Wu, Strippers Are Workers
Week Seven - February 17 and 19, 2025
February 17 - NO CLASS, PRESIDENTS DAY
The Next Shift: Anti-Discrimination Law, Organized Labor in Crisis, Rise of the Service Economy, and Global Restructuring
Week Eight - February 24 and 26, 2025
Labor and Global Supply Chains
Guest Speaker:
- Silvia González, Casa Latina
Week Nine - March 3 and 5, 2025
Today's Labor Movement and Caring Labor
Week Ten - March 10 and 12, 2024
Review and Reflection