Our faculty teach University of Oregon credit courses and are guest presenters on topics such as labor history, the politics of work and employment, and economic and gender equity in the workplace. Courses have been offered through the history, political science, and sociology departments as well as the Clark Honors College.

The Labor Education and Research Center runs a unique externship program where UO undergraduates of any major can earn up to four credits for working with a labor organization in the State.  Our faculty also serve as advisors to undergraduate theses and PhD dissertations. Here is a sample of the credit courses our faculty have offered in recent years:

HIST 399 Sports History and Society (Professor Bob Bussel): This course considers the history of sports and the powerful role they play in our lives. It includes consideration of labor organizing, the business and culture of sports, and connections between sport and society.

HIST 407/507 Class Dismissed: The American Labor and Working-Class Experience since 1945 (Professor Bob Bussel): This seminar has three principal aims: to illuminate key themes and developments in the history of workers and unions following World War II, to encourage critical reading and evaluation of different forms of historical evidence, and to provide students with the opportunity to engage in archival and primary source research.

HIST 410/510 Proud Decades or the Age of Anxiety? American Culture and Politics, 1945-1960 (Professor Bob Bussel):  The aim of this class is to grapple with contested views of American politics and culture from 1945-1960, better understand how this crucial period profoundly shaped late twentieth-century American history, and consider its relevance for contemporary times.

HIST 410/510 Labor Pains: The American Working-Class Experience in the Twentieth Century (Professor Bob Bussel): This course examines the complex, multiple forces that have affected the fortunes of workers and unions during the twentieth century.

HIST 410/510 US Immigration History (Professor Bob Bussel): Americans’ attitudes toward immigration have fluctuated across a “come here, don’t come here” pendulum that has often erupted in a sharp social and political conflict. The class reviews this complex history from a variety of perspectives that encompass the many social forces and social actors affected by the movement of people across distances both great and small.

HIST 463 US Labor History (Professor Bob Bussel): Varying topics on the economic development of the United States as a preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial society.

HIST 463/563 American Dreaming: The Politics of Work in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (Professor Bob Bussel): Examines the multiple forces that have shaped work and workplace relations in the United States over the past century.

HC 431H Congress Up Close: How Does the U.S. Government Really Work? (Professor Gordon Lafer) Based on instructor’s experience serving as Senior Labor Policy Advisory for the 2009-10 U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor.

LERC 406| Union Internship Program
Supervisor: Gordon Lafer   LERC places UO students in internships engaged in research and organizing projects with Oregon unions, workers’ organizations, public policy organizations, and legislators concerned with labor and employment issues. Students generally meet with a faculty advisor bi-weekly in addition to their internship work. There is no prerequisite for this internship. It is pass/fail, and counts for four credits.

PS 399 The Politics of Inequality (Professor Dan Hosang and LERC Faculty Instructor Raahi Reddy):   This weekend course explores the political, cultural, and social dimensions of economic inequality in the United States and considers the way that race, gender, and other forms of difference shape patterns of inequality and competing visions of economic and social justice.

PS 399 Seminar Topics on the Politics of Work and the Workers Movement (Professor Gordon Lafer): Topics are focused on current issues including political theory, employment policy, analysis of workplace relations and public policies.

SOC 446/546 US Unions and Worker Movement (Professor Emeritus Marcus Widenor): This class examines the development of the US labor movement since WWII with an emphasis on how the current system of industrial relations and workplace dispute resolution operates.  It then investigates the relationship between labor and other grass roots social movements including women, non-white and immigrant workers and explores some of the new strategies and tactics being used to further the interests of workers in our country.