IU Indianapolis Campus Bulletin 2024-2025

Core Courses

• LSTU-L 199 Portfolio Development Workshop (1 cr.) Emphasis for this course is placed on developing learning portfolios as foundation documents for academic self-assessment and planning and as applications for Prior Learning Assessment.

• LSTU-L 100 Survey of Unions and Collective Bargaining (3 cr.) 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. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 101 US Labor History (3 cr.) 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. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 290 Topics in Labor Studies (1-3 cr.) This is a variable-title course.  L290 can be repeated for credit with different subjects.  The transcript will show a different subtitle each time the course is taken.  Some courses focus on contemporary or special areas of labor studies.  Others are directed toward specific categories of employees and labor organizations. See the list below or inquire at iulabor@iupui.edu Can be repeated for credit with different subjects. The transcript will show a different subtitle each time the course is taken.

• LSTU-L 104 Labor History (3 cr.) 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. Discussion focuses on selective questions  and events.

• LSTU-L 110 Introduction to Labor Studies (3 cr.) 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

• LSTU-L 200 Survey of Employment Law (3 cr.) 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, privacy, and other rights. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 201 Labor Law (3 cr.) 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; protection of individual rights to representation. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 203 Labor and the Political System (3 cr.) 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. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 205 Contemporary Labor Problems (3 cr.) 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.

• LSTU-L 210 Workplace Discrimination and Fair Employment (3 cr.)

  Examines policies and practices that contribute to workplace discrimination and those designed to eliminate discrimination. Explores effects of job discrimination and occupational segregation. Analyzes Title VII, ADA, and related topics in relation to broader strategies for addressing discrimination. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 220 Grievance Representation (3 cr.) Union representation in the workplace. The use of grievance procedures to address problems and administer the collective bargaining agreement. Identification, research,  presentation, and writing of grievance cases. Analysis of relevant labor law and the logic applied by arbitrators to grievance decisions. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 230 Labor and the Economy (3 cr.) Analysis of the political economy of labor and the role of organized labor within it. Emphasis on the effect of unemployment on workers, unions, and collective bargaining; investment policy and changes in technology and corporate structure. Patterns of union political and bargaining responses. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 240 Occupational Health and Safety (3 cr.) Elements and issues of occupational health and safety. Emphasis is on 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.

• LSTU-L 250 Collective Bargaining (3 cr.)

  The development and organization of collective bargaining in the United States, including union preparation for negotiations, bargaining patterns and practices, strategies and tactics, economic and legal considerations. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 251 Collective Bargaining Laboratory (1-3 cr.) P: or C: LSTU-L 250.

  Designed to provide collective bargaining simulations and other participatory experiences in conjunction with L250. Student must be currently enrolled or have taken L250. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 255 Unions in State and Local Government (3 cr.)

  Union organization and representation of state and municipal government employees, including patterns in union structure, collective bargaining, grievance representation, and applicable law. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 260 Leadership and Representation (3 cr.)

  Organizational leadership issues for union, community, and other advocate organizations. Analyzes leadership styles, membership recruitment, and leadership development. Examines the role of leaders in internal governance and external affairs including committee building, delegation, negotiations, and coalition building. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 270 Union Government and Organization (3 cr.) 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. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 280 Union Organizing (3 cr.)

  Explores various approaches and problems in private and public sector organizing Traditional approaches are evaluated in light of structural changes in labor markets and workforce demographics. Topics range from targeting and assessments, to committee building and leadership development.

• LSTU-L 190 The Labor Studies Degree (1 cr.) Required for all Labor Studies program majors.  This course introduces the Labor Studies degree and the knowledge and skills needed by students to progress toward a degree in a reasonable time frame.  Students will learn how to build a plan of study that takes advantage of both credit for prior learning and new learning opportunities.

• LSTU-L 231 Globalization and Labor (3 cr.)

  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. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 285 Assessment Project (1 cr.)

  Capstone experience for associate degree students. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 271 Framed: Labor and the Media (1 cr.) This course examines media (and, in turn, public) understanding of the U.S. labor movement and analyzes reaction to some specific, highly publicized strikes. News media have rarely served as independent storytellers of strikes. Instead, they have told stories that are aligned with the generally antilabor interests of corporate America (including their publishers and parent media corporations). Even among more liberal media, "ordinary" workers are often portrayed as a passive mass that is controlled and directed by unions and labor leaders. It is rare to see any news outlet sympathetic to the beliefs and causes of labor or to striking workers. This course will be driven by the overarching question of why that might be.

• LSTU-L 272 White Privilege in the Workplace: Origins, Culture, and Ideology (1 cr.) 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.

• LSTU-L 275 Protecting Workers' Rights in Global Supply Chains (3 cr.) 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. (Core Course)

• LSTU-L 289 Work Like A Girl: Women's Evolving Workplace Role (3 cr.) 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.

• LSTU-L 291 The Bully in the Workplace (1 cr.) This one (1) credit will examine the dynamics of workplace bullying.  We will analyze the factors that contribute to bullying in the workplace. We will examine the types of personalities that allows bullies to perpetrate the harm and how bullies threaten, intimidate, humiliate, and sabotage both targets and workplace productivity.

• LSTU-L 292 Preventing Sexual Harassment (1 cr.) This one-credit course will briefly examine all aspects of workplace and academic sexual harassment, including but not limited to definitions, history, federal and state law, EEOC guidelines and procedures, employer and school liability, personnel, school and contract language and policies, and personal perspectives.  Reasons for and solutions to workplace and academic sexual harassment will be discussed.

• LSTU-L 293 Family Medical Leave (1 cr.) This class will examine the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act law that has given employees new rights to request leave from their employer.  We will review the history of the passage of the FMLA and will examine maternity leave, parental leave, sick leave, and protections for disabled workers in US and other countries.

• LSTU-L 294 Staffing as a Safety Issue (3 cr.) Health Care Staffing and Total Worker Health will explore the theory and practice of workforce staffing in health care considering the impact of health care management decisions related to staffing on quality of care for patients and occupational health for workers.  Theoretical perspectives, research, union contracts and definitional constructs will be examined and discussed.  Participants will work in individually and in pairs to research and explore health care staffing in specific segments of the health care industry and propose an action research project as a synthesis of their learning.

• LSTU-L 295 Crisis in Public Education (1 cr.) This course considers ways in which educational researchers and policymakers have identified, examined, and sought to address the goals and challenges of preK-12 public education in the United States. Key characteristics include accountability and testing; desegregation and diversity; school choice and the impact of charter schools; and teachers alternative certification programs. Designed to encourage a wide range of viewpoints, the course readings reflect a variety of disciplines including political science, public policy, sociology, anthropology, education, and media reports.

• LSTU-L 296 Preventing Workplace Violence (1 cr.) This course will examine the causes, preventions, and individual risks for workers from the real/perceived threat of violence in the workplace.  We will identify behavioral, environmental, and administrative factors that contribute or prevent the incidents of violence in the workplace.

• LSTU-L 297 Strike: Labor Revolt in America (1 cr.) This course explores the strike as a mechanism of worker power and worker threat in American culture. Through readings and discussion, the unequal balance of power between labor and management is the backdrop for worker action necessitated by the inadequacy of protective worker legislative, deregulation, and continued corporate assaults of workers and their well-being.

• LSTU-L 298 American Dream in an Age of Decline (3 cr.) American Dream in an Age of Decline is the interdisciplinary exploration of frameworks within which the notion of the American Dream has been constructed and changed over time in relation to the working class. What is the American Dream? How do the dreamers envision equality in their societies? How do perceptions of and struggles for equality impact definitions of success and happiness? There is no simple response that would be sufficient to these questions. In this course, we will examine what has happened to the American Dream and the life chances of working people.   We will focus on the present state of working Americans and see how the standard of living for Americans has been affected (defined) by the larger social, political, and economic environments.

Advanced Courses

• LSTU-L 314 Ethical Dilemmas in the Workplace (3 cr.) The course explores the fundamental basics for ethical decision making in a workplace, both unionized and nonunionized. We will discuss specific considerations for making moral judgments within the work environment and explore the basis upon which those decisions are made.

• LSTU-L 315 The Organization of Work (3 cr.)

  Examines how work is organized and jobs are evaluated, measured, and controlled. Explores social and technical elements of work through theories of scientific management, the human relations school of management, and contemporary labor process literature.

• LSTU-L 320 Grievance Arbitration (3 cr.) P: Recommended only after L220 or with permission of instructor. The legal and practical context of grievance arbitration, its limitations, and  advantages in resolving workplace problems. Varieties of arbitration clauses and the status of awards. Participants analyze, research, prepare, and present cases in mock arbitration hearings. (Recommended only after L220 or with permission of instructor.)

• LSTU-L 330 Global Comparisons: Labor Relations Examples from Three Continents (3 cr.) This course uses a political economy framework to explore and compare countries' systems of labor relations, drawing from at least three continents. It analyzes the diverse approaches to the structure of twenty-first century labor law and social policy. It focuses on the role of organized labor in the global economy, patterns of breakdown in the enforcement of labor and employment law, and union and nonunion political and bargaining responses.

• LSTU-L 331 Global Problems, Local Solutions (3 cr.)

  This course addresses local manifestations of global problems confronting society, workers, and the labor movement. Students will cooperatively analyze issues, propose potential solutions, and engage in activities or practices that address globally driven local issues. Students will identify governmental, non-governmental, and charitable organizations that aid in ameliorating local problems. As a final project, students will design collaborative solutions based on our contemporary global situation in which work is characterized by flexibility, insecurity, and geographic mobility.

• LSTU-L 350 Issues in Collective Bargaining (3 cr.) Readings and discussion of selected problems. Research paper usually required.

• LSTU-L 360 Union Administration and Development (1-3 cr.) This course covers practical and theoretical perspectives on strategic planning, budgeting, and organizational decision making.  It addresses the needs and problems of union leaders by studying organizational change, staff    development, and cohesiveness within a diverse workforce.  This course may be repeated for up to 3 credits with department approval.

• LSTU-L 370 Labor and Religion (3 cr.) This course has primarily an historical focus. It looks at the relationship between religion and the labor movement as it developed in the United States over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. It attempts to uncover the tradition in which workers of faith have connected their religious values to their more secular concerns for social justice.

• LSTU-L 380 Theories of the Labor Movement (3 cr.) Perspectives on the origin, development, and goals of organized labor. Theories include those that view the labor movement as a business union institution; an agent for social reform; a revolutionary force; a psychological reaction to industrialization; a moral force; and an unnecessary intrusion.

• LSTU-L 384 Diversity and Inequality in America (3 cr.) This course explores the paradox between issues of diversity and income inequality in contemporary society and provides a critical focal point for examining the way in which claims for diversity and mounting inequality are interrelated. The continued and expanding inequality in American society despite expanding initiatives to address racial, gender, and ethnic inequality suggests the need to dive more deeply into political debates addressing inequality and its impact on employment and workers in the US through the critical examination of cause and effect of long-term inequality, benefits and limits of diversity policies, and identification of competing strategies to address these issues.

• LSTU-L 385 Class, Race, Gender, and Work (3 cr.) Historical overview of the impact and interplay of class, race, and gender on shaping U.S. labor markets, organizations, and policies. Examines union responses and strategies for addressing class, race, and gender issues.

• LSTU-L 389 Global Work-Family Conflict: Comparative Policy Solutions (3 cr.) This course provides an overview of work-family policy in the US and other high-income countries, comparing the problems and solutions experienced by working people who are caring for family members. This course takes the view that we will be a happier and healthier society if we find ways to make these two spheres compatible. This is an introductory analysis of how explicit and implicit policies impose stress and impossible roles on mothers, fathers, caregivers of all kinds, and low-income parents in particular.

• LSTU-L 390 Big Box Retailers: Impact on Community and Workers (1 cr.) This course explores “big box” retail stores and their impact on labor and local communities. The course examines how big box stores affect economics, environment, and the workforce and the ways in which a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back.

• LSTU-L 391 Essential Workers: Public Health and Labor (3 cr.) This course explores roles, expectations, and protections for essential workers during a pandemic.  The definition of an essential worker, protections and risk factors will be explored and discussed.  Guiding constructs include health equity, the precautionary principle and total worker health.  Participants will explore definitions of standard and non-standard employment and learn about the challenges and consequences for the health and safety of workers.  The course will conclude with case descriptions regarding the tools used by labor and outcomes for workers.  Participants will identify priority action steps to protect essential workers and policies that link with structures impacting health.

• LSTU-L 395 Women and Development (3 cr.) This course provides an overview of the field of women/ gender and development in low-income nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and will cover the main debates in this field, including the ways in which gender relations within households and communities affect women's employment and working conditions, the differential impact of globalization on women and men in agriculture, the informal sector, and the formal labor force, health issues, population control, climate change, and migration as seen through a gender lens, and effects of global financial crises on women.

• LSTU-L 398 The Industrial Workers of the World: Labor History Seminar (3 cr.) Through readings and discussions, this course explores the formation and demise of The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radial union formed in Chicago in 1905 and was open to all races/genders of unskilled workers; Adopting the motto “An injury to one is an injury to all,” the IWW’s goal was to organize all workers into a single union and abolish the system of capitalism.

• LSTU-L 399 Prior Learning Experiences (Self-Acquired Competency) in Labor Studies (1-15 cr.) Prior learning assessment (PLA): This course involves PLA credit to be earned for equivalent college-level knowledge gained from previous work experience, military training, or community engagement and showcased in a comprehensive portfolio through written or digital reflections documenting competencies gained through prior learning experiences. Student work is certified/approved for credit by a faculty committee.

• LSTU-L 375 Comparative Labor Movements (3 cr.) L375: Labor movements and labor relations in industrial societies from historical, analytical, and comparative perspectives. Emphasis on interaction between unions and political organizations, national labor policies, the resolution of workplace problems, the organization of white-collar employees, and the issues of workers' control and codetermination.

• LSTU-L 420 Labor Studies Internship (1-6 cr.) This course applies classroom knowledge in the field.  L420 may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours. The Internship course is designed to allow students interested in Labor Studies the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge of the discipline in a unionized setting.  Internships are completed in community based or unionized organization and students are required to observe and participate in a union-related capacity under supervision.  Students must complete the classroom component of the Internship credit as well as the unionized work-place requirements.  Admission to the Internship requires instructor approval.

• LSTU-L 430 Labor Research Methods (3 cr.) This course focuses on methods of research design, techniques, and procedures commonly used by social scientists. Students would learn basic research skills that include but are not limited to, how to collect, analyze, and interpret data specific to labor and or working-class issues. The primary objective seeks to produce more critical consumers of social science knowledge through the fundamentals of qualitative and quantitative design, data analysis, documentation, and presentation.

• LSTU-L 480 Senior Seminar or Readings (3 cr.) Designed as either a classroom seminar or directed reading. This course addresses current issues, historical developments, and other labor-related concerns. Topics vary each semester.

• LSTU-L 490 Power and Class in Politics (3 cr.) This course explores the political limits placed on working class power in the US over time and its effect on workers and their organizations. An essential part of the course will focus on the different ways in which power and class intersect in the American political structure, where socioeconomic limits are transformed into political constraints. Using the American political structure as the backdrop, students will examine basic concepts of power and how concepts of power translate into practical political boundaries that must be overcome if labor is to grow and expand its influence in the American political process. Essential for this discussion is the debate of how power is exercised in American society, power in our discussion is real, with deep rooted political implications and not simply an exercise of understanding how far we have come from the democratic premises of the countries’ founders.

• LSTU-U 490 Topics in Labor Studies (1-3 cr.) This is a variable-title course.  L490 can be repeated for credit with different subjects. The transcript will show a different subtitle each time the course is taken.  Some courses focus on contemporary or special areas of labor studies.  Others are directed toward specific categories of employees and labor organizations. Inquire at Labor Studies offices.

• LSTU-U 495 Directed Labor Study (1-6 cr.) This is a variable credit course.  L495 may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours. Students arrange to study with an individual labor studies faculty member, designing a course of study to suit their individual and varied needs and interests.  The contract might include reading, directed application of prior course work, tutorials, or internships.  Competencies are assessed through written papers, projects, reports, or interviews.