This class looks at how work is performed in the modern world and asks how decisions will be made in the workplace of the future. Many government officials and management theorists suggest that quality circles and employee involvement plans should replace labor unions as a voice for workers. They also claim that these programs run counter to the rigid "scientific management" and assembly-line strategies that became prominent in the early 20th Century. Some prominent union leaders are also strong supporters of cooperation plans. Are these programs a response to a new, competitive global economy, or are they similar to the "company unions" of the 1920's and 30's? We'll look at some of the history behind the current debates over power and productivity in the workplace, and we'll look for the social vision behind competing views of workplace democracy.

The class will have a lively, participatory format which will include videos, guest speakers, and student teaching projects in addition to books and articles on labor history and current policy debates.

Adjunct faculty member and instructor Sarah Ryan is Vice-President of the Greater Seattle American Postal Workers Union and a member of Labor Notes magazine's policy committee.

Books available at TESC Bookstore: (some may also be available from Amazon.com or Powell's City of Books)

• The Electronic Sweatshop : How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past, by Barbara Garson, Penguin USA (Paper),1989
• Fact Finding Report -- Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, US Department of Labor, 1995
• Inhuman Relations: Quality Circles and Anti-Unionism in American Industry, by Guillermo J. Grenier, Temple University Press, 1988.
• On the Line at Subaru-Isuzu : The Japanese Model and the American Worker, by Laurie Graham, Cornell University ILR Press,1995
• Working Smart: A Union Guide to Participation Programs and Reengineering, edited by Jane Slaughter, South End Press, Boston, 1994.
• A photocopied reader with other important articles will be available in the bookstore.

• attend all class sessions and participate in seminars. If you miss two sessions, you will not be able to get credit for the class. You must be present at the first class session to be considered enrolled.
• write a 1-2 page review and response to each week's reading.
• participate in a group research and teaching project that critically examines a current labor/management participation program of your choice. Your seminar group will work on the project throughout the quarter and report on the last day.

Introduction of class participants and discussion of class themes. Workshop: Taylorism and the Modern World. Film: Clockwork. In-class reading: Principles of Scientific Management on the web page.

Optional: If you'd like to read more about Taylor, start with this review of Robert Kanigel's book: The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. Here are two other reviews of Kanigel's biography, one by George F. Will and the other by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt.

Week Two -- January 17 - The "electronic sweatshop" -- stereotype or reality? Is Taylorism alive and well or dying in the modern workplace? Films: "Loose Bolts?" and "Commitment to Excellence"

Reading: The Electronic Sweatshop by Garson.

Optional articles: This piece on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike in 1980 and the roles of scientific management and technology. Here's the first chapter of "Trapped in the Net: The Unintended Consequences of Computerization." by Gene I. Rochlin. And check out this article from the progressive era, which tells you exactly how to do dishes. Even higher education can be restructured by Taylor's methods. Read David Noble's article entitled, "Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education."

Week Three -- January 24-What was the Dunlop Commission and why were they called together? What economic conditions are behind the new drive for worker-management cooperation? Is there a crisis of productivity? Who is promoting labor/management cooperation and why?

Reading: Dunlop Commission report; selections from The New Unionism in reader; Introduction to Working Smart.

Film: Ties That Bind

Guest speaker: Mark Bean, carpenter, organizer, Evergreen grad. "Taylorizing Home Building"

Your group should choose a case study on labor/management cooperation by the end of this class.

Optional reading: a speech by National Labor Relations Board Chairman William Gould. Also, there's an excellent discussion of the "skills" debate by Doug Henwood in the Left Business Observer, a witty, well researched journal that challenges fuzzy thinking across the political spectrum.

Week Four -- January 31 - Workers and management in the 1920's and early 1930's: economics, power, and parallels to today. Reading: The Lean Years selections (in reader).

Workshop: Library research with Terry Hubbard (9:30 in the Library)

Week Five -- February 7- The rise and fall of employee representation plans and welfare capitalism. Guest speaker and instructor: Helen Lee, Director, TESC Labor Center and Tom Bernard, labor organizer, activist and educator.

Film: Strikestory, about the 1934 West coast Longshore strike and the San Francisco General Strike.

Reading: Selections from "Making a New Deal," "New Feet Under the Table," and "Labor Relations Today," all in reader. A great introduction to Welfare Capitalism is available in this excerpt from Modern Manors: American Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal, by Sanford Jacoby. You're strongly encouraged to read it.

Week Six -- February 14 - A case study: Cooperation plans and anti-unionism today.

"Teamsters Union Film Festival" -- Actions Speak Louder Than Words; Power at Work; and America's Victory, the 1997 UPS Strike.

Reading: Inhuman Relations (first half - Preface and Chapters 1-4) and Chapter 7 from Working Smart: Mazda: Choosing Workers Who Fit.

Week Seven -- February 21- Power relations in the workplace today. Film: Collision Course.

Reading: Inhuman Relations (second half) and Chapters 1-3 from Working Smart. Read about the new generation of union-busting techniques and how workers are beating them in this article from Covert Action Quarterly by labor journalist David Bacon.

Week Eight -- February 28- A case study: the "Japanese system" in a U.S. automobile plant.

Film: Working Together: Saturn and the UAW

Reading: On The Line at Subaru-Isuzu. Check out this web site called "Roll," which is created by pro-union workers at the Nissan Motor Manufacturing Company.

Guests: participants in labor/management cooperation programs

Week Nine -- March 7- Re-engineering and Employee Involvement: case studies and international comparisons, organizing. Film: You Gotta Move. Guest: Andrew Barnes, AFL-CIO Organizing Institute.

Reading: Chapters 12, 13, 14 and 28, 29, 30 from Working Smart, last article in reader, from Working Under Different Rules.

Week Ten -- March 14 -- Student group presentations and discussion of alternatives. Reading: All of section V I from Working Smart. Address the possibilities for some of these strategies in your presentations.