ECON/LBST 330: Workers and the Economy (Rev. C2/C2)

This course explores the economies of rich countries like Canada from the perspective of working people. It follows them to labour markets, into the production process and to markets for consumer goods. The course also explores economic policies and international economic relations. Working people encounter company owners and managers in all of the aforementioned markets and institutions. The course shows the conflict of interest between these two different groups of people and concludes with a unit on the prospect of labour movements.

LBST 200/202: Introduction to Labour Studies (Rev. C4)

This course is about workers and their organizing efforts. In other words, it is about efforts carried out in order to improve the working and living conditions of people who have to find paid employment to make a living.

LBST 325: Labour Mobility and Migrant Workers (Rev. C1)

Labour mobility examines the geographic mobility of workers. Approximately 44% of Canadians regularly cross at least one municipal, provincial, territorial, or national boundary on their way to and from work. About 10% of these workers work in transient or mobile workplaces. There are also over 300,000 foreign nationals working temporarily in Canada today, and approximately 270,000 new immigrants to Canada each year. This course examines these various forms of labour mobility and how they affect workers, their families, and the sending and receiving communities.

LBST332/SOCI332/WGST 332: Women and Unions (Rev. C3/C3/C3)

LBST 332 course explores the relationship between women and unions from a global perspective.

LBST 335/GLST 335/HIST 335: Global Labour History (Rev. C3/C3/C3)

LBST/GLST/HIST 335: Global Labour History, a course that will have you follow workers and workers movements throughout the history of global capitalism, as well as provide you with the theoretical tools needed to understand changing conditions of work, and different strategies used by workers to improve their conditions. The course uses the cotton and rubber industries as examples to highlight the diverse worlds of work, beginning in cotton and rubber plantations and culminating in global production networks—with cotton driving 19th century capitalism, and rubber as a key component of automobile manufacturing, the leading industry of the 20th century.

LBST 335/GLST 335/HIST 335: Global Labour History (Rev. C2)

LBST 335 follows workers and workers movements from Caribbean slave plantations and Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century to today’s global production and distribution networks. After a theoretical introduction, the course explores working class formation and the organization of unions and workers parties in the 18th and 19th century. It then looks at 20th century labour in the West, the East, and the Global South. The course ends with an overview of global labour in the 21st century. Each unit of the course looks at the ways in which race and gender differentiated the global forces of labour.

LBST 415: Sex Work and Sex Workers (Rev. C1)

LBST415: Sex Work and Sex Workers is a three-credit, senior-level course that introduces you to sex work in Canada. This course offers an overview of the sex industry in a variety of theoretical and material contexts, as well as an in-depth focus on sex work in the Canadian context.