National Labor College • Course Catalog 2012–2013 • www.nlc.edu LBUS-3916 Organizing II (2 credit hours) This course, focusing on the private sector, is designed for those who have completed Organizing I, who have comparable organizing experience, or who will assume (or have assumed) greater organizing responsibilities. Specific elements include recruiting and training of union members in the organizing process; leader development; corporate campaign research; legal strategies; database/reporting procedures; campaign issues and theme development; community involvement; campaign planning; and progress analysis.
LBUS-3927 Train-the-Trainer on Workplace Health and Safety (3 credit hours) This six-day train-the-trainer program focuses on workplace health and safety. This program is different from the OSHA 500 and 600 courses and is a good complement to these courses. Participants—union activists, staff, and health and safety representatives—will learn how to teach their fellow union members about workplace safety and health. The training focuses on involving workers in union efforts to improve safety and health, and making the union more effective in its efforts to get the employer to correct safety and health problems. Participants will learn how to teach a curriculum that includes the role of workers and their unions in safety and health, identifying hazards in the workplace, legal rights of workers and unions, employer record-keeping requirements for workplace injuries and illnesses, introduction to ergonomics, and effective health and safety committees. The program is participatory and includes all the materials participants need to teach the curriculum. [Permission of the instructor is required. Participants must be sponsored by their union and must agree to facilitate safety and health training in their union. The sponsoring union must make a commitment to support the participants in conducting health and safety training for its members.]
LBUS-3928 Health Care Bargaining (2 credit hours)
This class will begin with an overview of the U.S. health care system, emphasizing key features such as hospitals, prescription drugs, testing and medical devices, and cost-drivers such as over-treatment and prescription drug marketing and research schemes. Students will learn bargaining dynamics by participating in a health care collective bargaining scenario during the week-in-residence. Following that week, each student will complete a research project chosen from a list provided by the instructor but customized to his his/her own interests, experience, and union setting.
LBUS-3941 Organizing in the Construction Industry I (2 credit hours) This course offers a comprehensive overview of organizing issues related to the construction industry, and offers concrete strategies aimed at promoting organizing throughout the industry. In addition to concentrating on issues related to workforce organizing—identifying, contacting, and communicating directly with unrepresented workers—participants will also review the evolution of construction organizing, the use of top-down and bottomup tactics, and basic labor law. Specifically, participants will learn how to identify leaders and build both employerbased and industry-wide worker committees. One-on-one skills, overall communications strategies, framing issues, and motivating workers will also be addressed in this program. [Formerly LBUS-3918.]
Bonnie Ladin Union Skills Program
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