What is the course about?
An online course on the history of the labour movement to understand the challenges of our times and sharpen our analysis, visions and strategies for the future.
By analysing historical examples of labour's response to questions of democracy, dictatorships, authoritarianism, migration, capitalist crises and others, the online course creates spaces for open debates about the labour movement today.
Check our trailer here.
The course start in Autumn, 2024.
Key concepts
organising, democracy, authoritarianism, dictatorship, anti-colonialism, migration, social movements, capitalist crisis.
Course structure
The course has four content chapters. Starting from 15 October 2024, a new content chapter will be posted each week. After becoming fully accessible, the course will remain open for studying the course materials at your own pace.
Chapter 1: Introduction to the course
Chapter 2: Why Does Labour Organise?: A Historical Perspective
Chapter 3: Labour Movements' Struggle for Democracy: Achievements and Tensions
Chapter 4: Labour and the Migration Question: What Does History Teach Us?
Chapter 5: Labour Movements and Other Social Movements: Collaborations and Tensions
Course materials and workload
This course has 4 content chapters. The chapter contains a series of units; each unit is composed of one video lecture, two quiz questions, one exercise, one key reading as well as additional readings. All the course materials, including video scripts, can be downloaded and used offline. Zoom workshops with the course experts are recorded and added to the course content for those interested in going deeper into the issues discussed in each video lecture.
The estimated workload for each chapter is 10 hours.
Course certificates
Certificates are available for purchase from iversity.
If you meet the course requirements, you can obtain a scholarship from the Global Labour University. For details on the requirements, read carefully the information in Chapter 1, Unit 2.
Localised workshops
The Global Labour University Online Academy will also organise a series of blended interventions through its network of 140 local local trainers and online tutors in 45 countries, namely:
Austria, Bangladesh, Argentina, Belgium, Benin, Brazi, Bolivia, Cameroon, China, Chile, Cambodia, Colombia, Ghana, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Vietnam, Germany, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Liberia, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Serbia, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United States, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Let us know if you want to join a localised workshop by sending an email to online@global-labour-university.org detailing your country, city and organisation. For more details, check Chapter 1 of our online course.
What will you learn?
Upon completing this online course, the course participants will be able to:
- understand the variety of labour responses to key questions facing workers in the past and explain the main reasons behind those responses;
- identify and discuss tensions and contradictions in labour strategies, which have shaped the trajectory of specific struggles and beyond;
- draw connections as well as similarities and differences among the different case studies analysed in the online course and ongoing struggles in their particular context;
- apply the arguments and learnings from the case studies onto the questions facing the labour movement today and argue on the merits of alternative strategies from those currently pursued.
What is the target audience?
workers, trade unionists, labour and other activists, labour researchers and practitioners, NGOs, students, media and others.
What prior knowledge is required?
This is a multi-disciplinary course drawing on the fields of social, political and economic sciences. It is at the level of a Masters’ programme, but the concepts are explained in an accessible language and illustrated through examples. Therefore, it is also possible to participate in the course using the skills and knowledge acquired. The course requires a working level of English.
Course instructors
Peter Rossman
I was Director of Campaigns and Communications for the international trade union federation of food, farm and hotel and catering workers IUF from 1991 until retirement in 2020. During that period I was actively involved in building trade union organization in transnational companies and their supply chains.
Tim Pringle
Rick Halpern
Rick Halpern
Peter Cole
Jon Hyslop
Ms Debora Migliucci
Mr William P Jones
I am a historian of race and class in the United States and author of The March of Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights and The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South I am a Professor of History at the University of Minnesota
Dorothy Sue Cobble
Growing up in a blue-collar union family in the 1950s Southern United States I learned about the depth of racial and class injustice and the power of collective organizing. The many jobs I held in my twenties before fleeing to graduate school at Stanford University left me acutely aware of workplace sexism and disrespect. I became fascinated by how work shapes our sense of self and especially curious about the distinctive feminisms, labor movements, and politics of working-class women. These questions animate all my writing and teaching. Thirty years and seven books later, I believe reimagining work and labor movements is more necessary – and possible -- than ever before. For more information about the books I have written and for copies of my essays, https://www.dorothysuecobble.com.
