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Labour Studies offers courses that are practical, relevant, and thought-provoking, some of which are unique in the world. Explore our current offerings.
Year 1 Courses
Introduction to workers’ rights.
Topics may include employment standards, workplace health and safety, and human rights protections.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in LABR 1F90.
Canada’s labour movement.
Topics may include the historical development of unions, collective bargaining, unions in society and assessments of union effectiveness.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in LABR 1F90.
Introductory exploration of the global labour processes behind a number of everyday items such as a t-shirt, a cup of coffee, and a smart phone.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Introductory exploration of emerging trends, patterns, and issues related to the future of work.
Topics may include artificial intelligence, technological displacement, workplace surveillance, and the rise of the gig economy.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Year 2 Courses
Multidisciplinary exploration. Theoretical and practical skills-based components.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as POLI 2P03)
Legal regulation of both union and non-union work in Canada.
Topics may include employment standards, labour relations, human rights and labour relations boards.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as SPMA 2P90)
Critical approach to sport as labour and professional athletes as workers.
Topics may include the history of labour organizing and labour relations in professional sports, collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts, and how axes of inequality, including race, gender and sexuality, shape athletes’ experiences of work.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SPMA 1P91 or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as COMM 2P92, PCUL 2P92 and SOCI 2Q92)
Global urban working class life through the lens of hip hop culture.
Topics may include the impact of neoliberal globalization, precarious work, the informal economy, and the ways in which race, class and gender shape experiences of social and economic life in the global city.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to students with a minimum of 4.0 overall credits.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in LABR 2P91.
(also offered as HIST 2P95)
Development of the global working class.
Topics include the origins of capitalism, diverse forms of working class politics and resistance, the history of international working class solidarity, and how race, gender and geography have structured working class experience and collective action.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one credit from LABR numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, HIST 1F95, 1F96, 1P99.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Work, labour, and class as understood through the production, exposition, and content of popular film. Emphasis on ideology and intersectionality in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Note: one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 recommended. May be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as WGST 2Q92)
How various inequalities, such as those based on gender, race, ethnicity, nation, sexuality, ability and citizenship status, are reproduced and resisted in workplaces, workers’ organizations, employment policy, and projects of change.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90), WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as COMM 2Q94 and PCUL 2Q94)
Multidisciplinary analysis of the intersections between class, country music, and social and cultural changes in North America. Topics may include the history of the genre and subgenres; the cultural politics of country music; musicians as workers; and the ways in which race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality are presented in the genre.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, COMM 1P91 and 1P92 (1F90), CPCF 1F25, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90), WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as SOCI 2Q95)
Examination of labour involving animals in historical, contemporary, and cross-cultural contexts.
Topics may include class and animals, animals as workers, connections and tensions between the rural and urban, debates about workers’ and animals’ welfare, inter-species solidarity, agency, and political action.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90).
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as HLSC 2Q96)
Examination of how work affects health and vice versa.
Topics may include workplace-rooted injuries, dangers and diseases; the psychological and emotional impacts of difficult and precarious work; health care workers’ wellbeing, political action, and social roles; healthier work-lives and workplaces.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, GEOG 1F90, HLSC 1F25, HLSC 1F90, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90), WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
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Year 3 Courses
(also offered as PCUL 3P06 and SOCI 3P06)
Intersectional and critical analysis of the cultural politics of class.
Topics may include class experience and consciousness, class and labour in popular culture, the influence of class and culture on society, and cultures of resistance.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to students with a minimum 8.0 overall credits.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, CPCF 1F25, PCUL 2P20, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90) or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as CANA 3P13 and POLI 3P13)
Critical, multidisciplinary, exploration of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary political activism in Canada’s labour movement.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, CANA 1F91, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Racism, racialization, and work in Canadian and global context.
Key theoretical approaches to racism and work and the social relations of race, class and gender under capitalism. Topics may include migrant work, employment equity, anti-racism, and the role of the labour movement in combatting racism.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90), WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Bargaining simulation played by students assuming the role of union and management negotiators.
Topics may include a survey of the nature, determinants and impact of collective bargaining in Canada, the procedural and substantive aspects of collective bargaining, grievance arbitration, and other dispute settlement procedures.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide.
Prerequisite(s): one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Examination of theoretical approaches and research techniques in Labour Studies.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Topics may include work-life balance, job satisfaction, workplace stress and coping mechanisms, attitudes towards unions, and sources of workplace co-operation and conflict.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, PSYC 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as WGST 3Q92)
Care work and other intimate labours including child care, elder care, domestic work and sex work. Examination of how relations of gender, race and class structure care work.
Topics may include social reproduction, migration, global care chains, the welfare state and care workers’ organizing.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1F90, WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as POLI 3Q93)
Transnational issues such as global capitalism, the environment and nature, trade, migration and labour organizing, and national case studies from regions such as the global south, Europe and Asia.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, GEOG 1F90, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90).
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as CRIM 3Q95, POLI 3Q95, SOCI 3Q95 and WGST 3Q95)
Examination of sex work, various theoretical perspectives on sex work and their social policy implications for sex workers.
Topics may include prostitution, pornography, the political economy of sex work and sex worker union organizing.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90), WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as CHYS 3Q96)
Multidisciplinary exploration of North American and international perspectives on child labour and youth in the labour market.
Lectures, seminars, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined), CHYS (single or combined) and CHYS BA (Honours)/BEd (Primary/Junior) majors until date specified in Registration guide.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, CHYS 1F90, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90).
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as POLI 3Q97)
Multidisciplinary examination of public sector unionism in Canada.
Topics include the origin and growth, collective bargaining and dispute resolution, privatization and contracting out, and public sector union political action.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
Year 4 Courses
(also offered as SOCI 4P21)
Theory and praxis of labour and social justice organizing.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined) majors and SOCI (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide. Students must have approval to year 4 (honours).
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90).
Note: experiential learning component with students creating their own labour/social justice campaign or participating in an existing campaign.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as CRIM 4P25 and SOCI 4P25)
Exploration of historical and contemporary forms of unfree labour in capitalist economies.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined), CRIM, and SOCI (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide. Students must have approval to year 4 (honours).
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as SOCI 4P31 and WGST 4P31)
Analysis of women’s and feminist leadership theory and praxis through the lens of paid and unpaid work, combined with the development of students’ own leadership skills through experiential learning opportunities.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined), CRIM, SOCI (single or combined) and WGST (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide. Students must have approval to year 4 (honours).
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, SOCI 1P90 and 1P91 (1F90), WGST 1F90.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as CANA 4P41 and POLI 4P41)
Application of Charter rights and freedoms, notably expression and association, to labour law in Canada.
Seminar, 3 hours per week
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined) and POLS (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide. Students must have approval to year 4 (honours).
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, CANA 1F91, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Note: POLI 2P12 (2F12) is recommended for Political Science majors. May be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as POLI 4P51)
Critical exploration of the role of labour, capital, and the state in the transformation of work and labour markets.
Topics include legislative and regulatory frameworks, international trade and transnational migration, technological and climate change, working-class politics, and global capitalism.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined) and POLI (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide. Students must have approval for year 4 (honours).
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.
(also offered as PHIL 4P61)
Explores different ideas of labour across the history of philosophy and theology. Emphasizes changing ideas of how labour relates to activities like political action, contemplation, and to the good life as a whole.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to LABR (single or combined) and PHIL (single or combined) majors until date specified in Registration guide. Students must have approval to year 4 (honours).
Prerequisite(s): one of one LABR credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99, one PHIL credit, or permission of the instructor.
Note: may be offered on-site, online or blended.