Provisionally approved 6/18/02
The Problems of Workers and Their Organizations
Level II
RATIONALE: Labor Studies students need to be able to identify and describe the challenges facing organized and unorganized workers in their workplaces and communities, as well as in organizations such as labor unions, associations of workers, and central labor councils. This activity should draw upon individual and collective experience as well as from reports and research studies. Students should be able to identify and describe important problems created by a range of external influences, including changes in ownership, management strategies, market forces, the use of political and police power, law and public policy, changes in technology, terms of employment, health and safety, risks, the race and gender composition of the work force, community relations, environmental problems, etc.). Students should also be able to identify and describe problems internal to a work force, a community or a worker organization, ranging from workplace divisions and employee grievances to institutional problems like leadership and membership participation. Finally, students need to be able to gain useful insights from case studies and other literature how workers and their organizations have attempted to address their internal and external problems.
COMPETENCY: Can identify and describe external and internal problems facing workers and their organizations, and can compare and evaluate efforts workers and their organizations have made to address those problems.
CRITERIA:
1. Read critically written material and other sources of information approved by the evaluator/instructor about the internal and external problems facing workers in their workplaces and/or communities and in their unions or associations.
2. Summarize these sources and use them to identify and explain the external problems facing workers in their workplaces and/or communities and in their unions or associations.
3. Compare and evaluate case studies of problems impacting workers and efforts by workers and/or their organizations have made to address those problems and challenges.
4. Apply learning about problem-posing and problem solving to an internal or external situation affecting a union, worker organization or unorganized group of employees.
PORTFOLIO LINKS: Written work for this competency should follow the guidelines in the Level II Communications portfolio writing standards. All written work must at least meet the writing standards of Porfolio I.
STANDARDS:
1. To meet criterion 1 students should be able
to comprehend key concepts, distinguish main ideas from evidence, recognize
the author’s view point.
2. To meet criterion 2 students should be able to summarize the ideas and insights in materials and explain how problems are identified and addressed and addressed in various situations.
3. To meet criteria 1 and 2 the student should reading critically and summarize materials concerning at least six problems facing workers and their organizations (at least two of the problems should concern internal issues to unions, workplace groups or worker organizations.)
4. To meet criterion 3 students should examine at least three case studies of problem posing/problem solving situations.
5. To meet criterion 4 students should attempt to find and apply their learning to a current problem facing workers and their organizations, preferably a problem in their own workplace or union.
6. All written information,
including case studies and the problem identified in criterion 4 should be
discussed with and approved by the evaluator.
EXAMPLES OF DEMONSTRATION:
1. Prior Learning: A group of two or three Labor Studies majors decide to use their own local unions as the situations to which they will apply learning from a joint study of the external and internal problems of organizations similar to and different from their own. They make a group presentation to members and their leaders of their organizations.
2. Independent Learning: A Labor Studies student pursuing an independent study on African American workers, identifies six problems facing workers of color drawing upon studies of racial issues in the labor market, in particular industries and workplaces, in particular localities and in the internal practices of unions. The student applies this learning to a problem of workers of color in his/her own workplace.
3. Course: A student completes an introductory course.
4. Field Project: A student or a group of students works with a local labor union that is planning an organizing drive in a certain workplace. The student or students works with the organizer to develop and carryout the survey based on home visits to assess the range of problems those workers identify, and then researching those problems as they are examined in the various written materials. Then student/students then return to the local with a proposal for how the local can best address those problems in its organizing campaign.