Course Descriptions

Core Course - AP/SOSC 2210 9.0 Labour Relations in Canada: An Introduction

This is a required course for students majoring or minoring in Work and Labour Studies.

This course analyzes labour relations in Canada. It reviews the historical development of the labour movement and the formation of the industrial relations system. In the historical process of collective struggle, workers gained significant legislated labour rights (including the right to organize, negotiate a collective agreement and resolve workplace conflicts through dispute resolution mechanisms) that form Canada's contemporary industrial relations system. Workers also won major social rights in the form of universal public services like universal healthcare, unemployment insurance, public education, health and safety, employment standards, and human rights legislation.

The course also explores the rise of neoliberal globalization from the 1970s onward, and examines its impact on labour markets, workers' legislated labour rights and worker protections, work time, health and safety, social programmes and other public services. The course concludes by analysing labour movement responses to these transformations, including labour-management partnership, new organizing strategies, international solidarity, social unionism, and community-based organizing.

SOSC 2210 is a Foundations course, usually taken in the second year, with an additional tutorial hour devoted to the development of analytical skills pertinent to the social sciences. The assignments focus on critical reading and research skills, involve group discussion, and encourage students to relate the course material to their own work experiences.

Course Director: Jason Russell
Mondays 12:30-2:30
CLH-G

Course Options

AP/SOSC 3130 6.0 (Y Term) Women and Work: Production and Reproduction

(cross-listed as AP/WMST 3510 6.0 and GL/WMST 3610 6.0)

This course explores the conditions of women's work, paid and unpaid. We look at the historical development of a sexual division of labour--how it has been forged, imposed and contested--and explore the gendering of jobs globally and within specific industries. The roles played by the family, employers, trade unions and government policy are examined as well as the particular concerns of immigrant women, visible minorities and aboriginal women.

Topics include household work, non- standard employment, women in non-traditional occupations, technology, unionization, pay equity and employment equity initiatives, racism and the gendering of jobs.

Course Director:

Offered at Glendon only

AP/SOSC 3210 6.0 (Y Term) The Working Class in Canadian Society

(cross-listed as AP/HIST 3531 6.0)

This course considers the emergence and reconstitution of a working class in Canada over the past 200 years. This process involved both the capitalist restructuring that brought a large class of wage earners into existence and the struggles of Canadian workers to assert their needs and concerns. The course, therefore, examines three spheres of working-class life.

First, it looks at the conditions that gave rise to permanent wage-labour in industry and the various ways in which that experience has been transformed by recruiting from new pools of labour, re-organizing the labour process, and introducing new technology. Particular attention will be paid to the range of responses from wage earners to the evolving world of paid work, depending on skill, gender, and ethnicity, especially the structures and ideologies of various workers' movements.

Second, the course is concerned with the changing nature of the working-class household - the gender ideologies that shaped its composition, the standards of living within it, the labour carried out within it, and the forces of social reform and state intervention intended to reconstruct working-class home life.

And, third, the course considers the social and cultural dimensions of working-class communities and the challenges posed by moral reformers and mass commercial culture. The course attempts to determine the extent of working-class identity that has emerged in Canada and how it has changed.

Course Director: Craig Heron
Wednesdays 2:30 - 4:30
A/SLH

AP/SOSC 3240 3.0 (S1Term) Labour and Globalization I:North American Perspectives

This course explores the changing world of North American work and trade unionism in the context of globalization. It begins by asking: what is globalization and is it new? What are the features of economic globalization and how do they affect labour? But today more than ever before, the world of work and the ability of unions to defend workers in a mobile world: both workers and companies cross borders as a way of life, shaking up the industrial relations structures and laws meant to regulate work and workers' lives, underming the traditional ability of unions to protect and defend.

In response, Canadian, American and Mexican unions have developed cross-border solidarities. Long, partial international union cooperation in the NAFTA zone, however, has not translated into widely effective defense against twenty-five years of the erosion of workers' rights.

In the first decade of the 21st century, four developments are changing the power relations around work in the NAFTA zone: the increased vulnerability of 'irregular' workers in each country; the emergence of truly international 'global unionism'; the emergence of aggressive investment by the Global South in Canadian and American corporations; and the strategic paralysis of Canadian, American and Mexican governments and union in relation to global warming and its impact on employment.

This course focuses on the emerging issues that expand the ways trade unions in the NAFTA zone work to defend workers' rights, while posing new and volatile problems.

Course Director: Ryan Toews

AP/SOSC 3241 3.0 (S2 Term) Labour and Globalization II: Comparative Perspectives

In the past two decades, both nations of the Global North and the Global South have become unequally integrated into the global marketplace. As a result, the roles of labour, as a bargaining agent, and as a political constituency, are being challenged. In the face of this, labour is also developing new forms of transnational citizenship, transnational union action, and new forms of organizing and voice.

The course uses a comparative analysis to trace the impact of globalization and to examine how labour movements in these countries have been transformed and how they have responded to specific challenges.

Course Director:

AP/SOSC 3380 6.0 (Y Term) Law, Labour and the State

Every human society has had to ensure that work gets done. The mobilization, discipline and reproduction of labour have been special concerns of many legal systems. This course begins with an overview of some historically significant legal regimes, including slavery, master and servant, and collective bargaining.

We then examine the three pillars of contemporary Canadian labour law: the common law of employment; statutory regulation of the employment relationship; and the collective agreement. Course materials include primary documents, statutes, decisions of courts and tribunals and scholarly writing.

Course Director: Prof. P. Craven
Wed. 12:30-2:30

AP/SOSC 3815 3.0 Jobs, Unemployment and Canadian Labour Market Policy

(formerly: AS/SOSC 3990T 3.0)

Whether or not labour markets function efficiently and advance the goals of social justice has important ramifications for economic growth and social stability. Over the past two decades, policy makers have redesigned labour-market policy in order to increase flexibility in the operation of labour markets. In this course, we will assess the dynamics and impact of this new paradigm of labour-market policy.

The course begins with an examination of theoretical approaches to understanding labour markets and labour-market policy, before turning to historical and contemporary developments in labour-market policy in Canada.

Finally, working in groups, students will prepare and engage in a series of class debates on policy issues including training, welfare-to-work policies, mandatory retirement, labour-market policy towards new immigrants, and school-to-work transitions for young people.

Not offered 2010-11

AP/SOSC 3980 3.0 (F Term) Workers' Organizations

This course investigates the various ways workers in capitalist societies have organized themselves to defend their collective interests. It considers the way that workers' organizations have varied according to different perspectives on workers' relationship to capitalism, the boundaries of the community of workers to be mobilized, the goals to be pursued and strategies to be used, and the internal organizational dynamics, including questions of democracy and leadership.

The course will examine both the theoretical underpinnings of different workers' organizations and specific case studies, which may include unions (craft, industrial, public sector, white-collar and general), union federations (regional, national and international), political parties (social democratic and radical), workers' co-operatives, anti-poverty and other community-based social justice organizations, coalitions with social movements, labour heritage and cultural institutions, and internal union bodies which mobilize women and minority workers around equity issues.

The course will focus on Canadian experiences, but will also draw on examples from both industrialized and developing countries.

Course Director: Andrew Jackson
Tues. 11:30 - 2:30
ACW 003

AP/SOSC 3981 3.0 (W Term) Diversity Issues in the Workplace

(Formerly: 3990R 3.0)

This course explores the types of discrimination that operates in the workplace and assesses the effectiveness of public policy and workplace programs to promote greater equality. The course will focus on discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age and disability.

Specific public policies to be studied include pay and employment equity, human rights legislation and the equality provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As well, the course will examine the initiatives by trade unions, and other social action groups, to promote equality in employment.

Course Director: Evelyn Encalada-Grez
Thurs. 11:30 - 2:30
VC 118

AP/SOSC 3993.0 3.0 (F and W Term) Strategies of Social Research

This is a course in critical social science methodology, designed to improve students' abilities to read and evaluate social research. The major research methods will be studied in the course using exemplary texts and hand-on assignments. Among the methods considered and compared are: quasi-experiments, surveys, ethnography, historical method, case studies, text analysis, and action research.

The course is not primarily about how to conduct a research project, (although the skills developed in the course are essential for researchers as well as for those who rely on social science knowledge in support of public policy and social action). Instead, the emphasis is on acquiring the ability to understand and evaluate research findings and reports. This ability is essential in any career or undertaking that relies on empirical evidence and analysis as the basis for rational decisions.

This course is jointly mounted by the Labour Studies, Law and Society, and Health and Society programmes in the Division of Social Science.

Course Director: Tracy Supruniuk

F Term:
Section A ~ Thurs. 8:30 - 11:30 Room 109/FC
Section B ~ Fri. 11:30 - 2:30 Room 118/VC

W Term:
Section M ~ Mon. 11:30 - 2:30 Room 1005/VH
Section N ~ Thur. 8:30 - 11:30 105/FC

Fourth Year Courses

AP/SOSC 4210 6.0 Y Term) Labour Relations Simulation

This course provides students who have academic or experiential background in industrial relations with the opportunity to increase their knowledge of collective bargaining, labour-management relationships and internal union and management decision-making processes through a year-long simulation.

As a member of the union or management team, each student is involved in researching, planning, negotiating and administering a collective agreement. During the first term members of the course prepare for and negotiate a new collective agreement. During the second term, they administer their agreement through the grievance/arbitration process. This is a structured simulation whose chief purpose is to provide an interesting and engaging opportunity to develop research, analytic and communications skills and to learn more about the policy, practice and substance of industrial relations in Canada today.

The grading scheme is designed to recognize a combination of individual and group work. Students must be prepared to devote significant time to group work outside of class. There are no examinations.

Course Director: Prof. Paul Craven
Thurs. - 2:30 - 5:30
Rooms:

AP/SOSC 4240 6.0 (Y Term) Labour Studies Work Placement

This course offers students in Work and Labour Studies and Business and Society (Labour Stream) the opportunity to work, before graduating, for and with a union or a community-based labour-friendly organization whose mandate is to advocate on behalf of workers and/or organized labour.

The purpose of such an internship is triple. First, it acquaints students with the nature of employment by a trade union. Second, it teaches students, through on-site field research, about the particular labour organization they are working with: its history and structures, how strategy and policy are formulated, how its internal bureaucracy works, etc. Third, the course brings students in internships together with the instructor in order to subject their new, first-hand knowledge of their placement organization to a structured intellectural analysis in a seminar situation. Students finishing the placement will have gained first-hand knowledge of how an institutional actor in the field of labour relations identifies its priorities, attempts to realize its goals, and deals with other institutional actors in the field.

In order to realize these objectives, the placement course operates on three levels. First, the student is expected to work one day a week or its equivalent at a labour organization of interest to the student and which is acceptable to the employer, the olacement supervisor and the student. Second, all placement students will be expected to spend six hours a month in seminars, in which they will discuss and exchange in a structured fashion about their work. Each student will be responsible for preparing and presenting discussion on their placement experience in relationship to specific labour studies topics. Finally, each placement student will submit a take-home exam at the end of the course. Students who wish to enrol in this course must prepare a resume and attend an interview with the course director during the spring advising period (April-May).

Course Director: Frank Luce
Fri. 11:30 - 2:30
Room: 010/ACE

AP/SOSC 4251 6.0 (Y Term) Mobile Worlds: Work, Labour & Power in the Global Economy

The social, economic and cultural world in which trade unionism operates has become much, much more complex. This year-long course offers a critical, in-depth and rigorous examination of that new social world and its trade unions: some of the globally important issues which are transforming the context of work and of trade union action worldwide, while challenging the trade unions to transform themselves. It places each of these issues within their historical, theoretical and cultural contexts.

This course is for Work and Labour Studies students, and will be of particular interest to those going on to graduate studies in politics, sociology, social and political thought, anthropology, environmental studies; and graduate professional studies in law, industrial relations, public administration, global business, and human resource management. It will also be of particular interest to those seeking employment with trade unions, which increasingly value advanced, university-based knowledge.

Course Director: Prof. Carla Lipsig-Mumme
Wed. 2:30 - 5:30
Room:

Related Options

The following related options are available in 2010-11. Days and times are subject to change. Please check Departmental calendars for prerequisites.

An asterisk (*) beside a course number means permission or a prerequisite is required.

*AP/ADMS 2600 3.0 Human Resources Management

(Crosslisted to: AP/HRM 2600 3.00)*

This course examines a number of issues in Canadian human resources management including: human resources planning, recruitment, selection, performance appraisal, industrial relations, and training and development.

*F Term:

Section A Mon. 7 - 10 p.m. A/SLH
Section B Wed. 4 - 6 p.m. 001/ACE
Section C Tue. 8:30 - 11:30 a.m. B/CLH
Section D Thu. 11:30 - 2:30 p.m. A/SLH
Section E Internet Course
Section F Fri. 6 - 9 p.m. 0001/TEL
Section G Tues. 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. 121/CB
Section I Internet Course
Section J Internet Course

*W Term:

Section M Mon. 7 - 10 p.m. 121/CB
Section N Fri. 11:30 - 2:30 p.m. A/SLH
Section O Internet Course
Section P Mon.2:30 - 5:30 p.m. C/CLH

*AP/ADMS 3400 3.0 Occupational Health & Safety

(Crosslisted to: AP/HRM 3400 3.00, HH/HLST 3240 3.00)

Covers federal and provincial occupational health and safety legislation, hazard identification and control, physical agents, chemical agents, socio-psychological aspects of health and the management of safety programs.

F Term

Section A Mon. 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. 011/ACE
Section B Tue. 7 - 10 p.m. 011/ACE

W Term

Section M Mon. 7 - 10 p.m. 013/ACE
Section N Mon. 4 - 7 p.m. 013/ACE

AP/COMN 3313 3.0 Labour in the Communication and Cultural Industries

This course analyzes labour in the communication and cultural industries (including journalism, broadcasting, creative labour and cyber-work) by the examination of the historical constitution, present institutions, and current practices organizing labour in these industries.

W Term

Thurs. 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. 115/CB

*AP/ECON 3200 3.0 Industrial Organization

Studies the non-strategic and strategic behaviour of firms and industrial organizations under different markets structures, with emphasis on imperfectly competitive markets. Topics include pricing and non-pricing strategies, vertical and horizontal restraints, entry deterrence, advertising, investment, and innovation.

F Term

Section A Mon/Wed 11:30 - 1 p.m. 307/ACW
Section B Tue. 7 - 10 p.m. 013/ACE

W Term

Section M Wed. 2:30 - 5:30 p.m. B/SLH

*AP/ECON 3240 3.0 Labour Economics - Theory

Applies economic theory to labour markets. Topics include labour force participation, hours of work, investment in education and training, worker mobility, demand for and supply of labour, the effects of market structure on wages and employment, and theories of trade unions and collective bargaining.

F Term

Section A Thur. 1 - 2:30 p.m. M/CLH
Tue. 1 - 2:30 p.m. M/CLH
Section B Wed. 4 - 7 p.m. 006/ACW

W Term

Section M Mon. 4 - 7 p.m. 006/ACW
Section N Tue. 7 - 10 p.m. M/CLH
Section O M/W 10 - 11:30 a.m. D/VH

*AS/ECON 3249 3.0 Labour Economics - Writing Course

F Term

M/W 10 - 11:30 a.m. B15/HNE

*AS/ECON 3250/3259 3.0(Writing) Labour Economics - Institutions

Examines the economic impact of trade unions, labour legislation and industrial organization of thelabour market.

Not Offered 2010-11

*GL/ECON 3540 3.0 Economics of Labour and Manpower

A survey of the application of economic theory and analysis to labour markets. Topics considered include: competing theories of the labour market, labour supply and demand, human capital, wage structures, impact of collective bargaining and employment and unemployment.

F Term Section Wed. 9 - 12 noon 105/GH

GL/ECON 3550 3.0 Labour Economics:Institutions and Policies

Not Offered 2010-11

*AP/ECON 3620 3.0 The Economics of Unemployment

Studies the post-war unemployment in Canada and discusses policy options to reduce unemployment. Includes an analysis of the effects of demographic changes, social security and minimum wage legislation, unions, technological change, cyclical changes and industrial restructuring on unemployment.

Term W

Section M Thur. 7 - 10 p.m. 031/HNE

*AP/ECON 4160 3.0 Theory and Practice of Arbitration

Examines the historical and current rationale for arbitration as a form of third party intervention in labour management disputes. Covers processes and practices of arbitration, economic criteria including income-based policies as applied to contract arbitration, the role and scope of arbitrators as defined by public policy, judicial review and industrial jurisprudence.

Not offered in 2010-11

*AP/ECON 4240 3.0 Topics in Labour Economics

Considers trade unions and employers' organizations in the Canadian labour market. Topics include the design and function of the institutions, worker and employer participation, the processes of conflict and agreement, the regulatory role of the state, and the nature of collective agreements and their effect on the labour market and processes of production.

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/GEOG 3800 3.0 Geographies of Work

This course examines the geographies of productive and reproductive labour at multiple scales, including global, national, regional, urban, domestic and personal.

Term W

Section M Wed. 4 - 7 p.m. 031/HNE

AP/GEOG 4800 3.0 Geographies of Organized Labour

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/HIST 3561 3.0 Business and Government in Canada since Confederation

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/HIST 3660 3.0 US Economic and Business History to 1880

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/HIST 3670 3.0 US Business History since 1880:

The Origins & Consequences of Managerial Capitalism

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/HIST 4051 6.0 Family, Work & Community: Canadian Society in the 19th & 20th Centuries

This course explores major themes in the formation of Canadian society through a critical examination of issues and debates aired in recent historical scholarship. Three periods pre-industrial, industrial and post-Second World War provide a temporal framework for analyzing recurrent issues.

Term Y

Section A Thur. 8:30 - 11:30 a.m. 101/MC

AP/HIST 4450 6.0 Themes in Eighteenth-Century British Social History

Social change and state policy in a maturing capitalist order dominated by a landowning aristocracy.

Not offered in 2010-11

*AP/HIST 4505 6.0 Canadian Labour and Immigration History

(Same as GL/HIST 4220 6.0)

The growth and development of the trade union movement and the impact on it of immigration and other policies of the Canadian government.

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/HREQ 3414 6.0 Work and Workplace

Not offered in 2010-11

AS/POLS 3140 3.0 Political Economy of Labour in Canada

An analysis of the role organized labour has played in the political economy of Canada. The course traces the interaction of labour, business and government and focuses on the contemporary struggle of labour as it confronts the corporate state.

Not offered in 2010-11

*AS/POLS 4091 6.0 Contemporary Marxist Theory

The central focus of this course is on Marxism. But the contemporary evolution of Marxism cannot be understood separately from its interplay with two of the most powerful theoretical currents in the modern world: feminism and poststructuralism.

Term F

Section A Mon. 11:30 - 2:30 p.m. 328A/BSB

*AS/POLS 4470 3.0 Working Class Politics in Capitalist Democracies

This course seeks to understand the current parameters of working class politics through a theoretical and historical examination of the relationship between parties, trade unions and the democratic capitalist state.

Term F

Section A Thur. 11:30 - 2:30 p.m. 110/FC

*HH/PSYC 3570 3.0 Organizational Psychology

This course involves the study of how individuals think about and relate to one another in organizations and business. It raises theoretical, scientific and practical questions about various aspects of psychological life in the workplace.

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/REI 3745 6.0 Work and Employment in the Global Economy

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/SOCI 3355 3.0 Social Movements

Topics studied will include the causes, characteristics, processes and consequences of social movements; the appeal, ideology, organizational structure, strategies and tactics of social movements; and the process of becoming committed to a social movement.

Term F

Section A Thur. 11:30 - 2:30 p.m. 002/ACE

AP/SOCI 3490 6.0 Formal Organizations

Among the topics considered are theories of bureaucratic organizations, the relationship between formal and informal structures, official-client relationships, the effects of organizations upon their members and the relationship of organizations to one another and to the community.

Term Y

Section A Thur. 4 - 7 p.m. 1016/TEL

*AS/SOCI 3600 3.0 Sociology of Work and Industry

In this course, work is viewed as a social problem. Topics include the meaning of work, the theory of alienation, evolving patterns of industrialization and labour relations, occupational cultures, the de-skilling of work, and solutions to alienated labour. The theories of post-industrial society are examined.

Not offered in 2010-11

*AS/SOCI 3615 3.0 Sociology of Occupations and Professions

The focus of this course is on occupational systems, careers, and the professions. The topics of occupational socialization, identity, and subcultures, role relationships in work groups, the process of professionalization, relationships to clients, and the significance of organizational contexts are explored.

Not offered in 2010-11

*AS/SOCI 4620 3.0 Issues in the Sociology of Work Labour

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/SOSC 3125 6.0 Women Organizing

Not offered in 2010-11

AP/SOSC 3169 3.0 Occupational Health

Not offered in 2010-11

AS/WMST 3520 3.0 Women and the Professions

This course investigates women’s experiences in the professions. Using feminist scholarship on gender and professionalization, the course explores women’s place in female-dominated occupations such as nursing and midwifery and in male-dominated occupations such as law and engineering.

Not offered in 2010-11