Courses

38:578:500 Introductory Seminar in Labor and Employment Relations (3) Critical challenges facing workers, employers, labor organizations, and the public with regard to work and employee representation.

38:578:501 Research Methods in Labor and Employment Relations (3) Definition of a research question; literature reviews; effective research techniques; case-study and survey research methods.  Basic statistical skills, data analysis, and presentation.

38:578:502 Writing in Employment Relations (3) Creation of articulate, persuasive written documents of the type needed in professional positions in employment relations; construction of an argument; intensive, individualized instruction; ESL students particularly welcome.

38:578:503 Problem-Solving Tools at Work (3) Applied analytical and statistical tools for solving problems at work, surveying employees, and maintaining quality.  Projects are individual/group and spreadsheet-intensive.

38:578:504 Leadership in Work Organizations (3) Leadership theory and its application to work organizations, including unions, nonprofits, and businesses. Leadership of small groups and large organizations; leadership diversity and development.

38:578:505 Negotiation (3) Negotiation strategy and tactics including positional, interest-based, and other theoretical approaches; rights, power, leverage, concessions, commitment; applications include business and labor contexts; negotiation skill development.

38:578:506 Theories of Labor and Employment Relations (3) The historical evolution and current state of employment relations theory.  Workplace democracy, the source of workplace conflict, alienation, the evolution of class, collective bargaining, and other issues are discussed from a variety of perspectives. 

38:578:507 Strategic Corporate and Industry Research (3) Overview of methods used to investigate the competitive situation/prognosis of an industry's employers, profitability, sales, employment, wages, and unionization; strategic corporate research.

38:578:508 Group Processes and Team Dynamics (3) Micro facilitation skill development; effective group decision-making or problem-solving event design; moderator behavior allowing a group to identify and achieve its goals.

38:578:509 American Workers and Politics (3) The democratization of politics and the emergence of workers as citizens; the political role of workers in contemporary U.S. society. The political ideology of American labor and its impact on electoral politics, voting patterns, and political participation.

38:578:510 The Inclusive Workplace (3) Fostering an inclusive workplace; issues related to race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and other aspects of diversity in work organizations.

38:578:511 Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace (3) Theory of emotional intelligence and its effects on employee performance and organizational success; research on the development of emotional intelligence; self-awareness and self-development.

38:578:512 Self-Development for Professional Success (3) How employees can advance their careers given the changing nature of work and organizations; skill assessment/development, career progression, and work/life balance; intergenerational, gender, and racial/ethnic issues.

38:578:513 Enforcing Worker Rights (3) Labor standards enforcement in theory and practice, wages, hours, overtime, and health/safety violations; diverse strategies for improved enforcement, including involving worker organizations.

38:578:515 Conflict Resolution in the Workplace (3) Theories of workplace conflict.  Critical review and analysis of dispute resolution techniques in union and nonunion workplaces.

38:578:520  Benefits and Social Insurance (3) Overview of benefits with a focus on social insurance systems, health insurance, and pensions.  Emphasis on public policy issues of importance to both unions and employers.

38:578:525 Public Sector Employment Issues (3) Scope and nature of public employment; organizations of public employees; problems and issues of federal, state, county, and municipal employees; special problems of particular groups; and emerging patterns of future development.

38:578:526 Immigration, Public Policy, and Worker Rights (3) The role of immigrant labor in contemporary society and accompanying public policy debates. Theories of migration, history of migration and immigration policy in the United States; labor market dynamics in immigrant-dominated industries. Existing employment and labor rights of immigrant workers. Community, labor, and immigrant organizations' efforts to improve wages, working conditions, and immigration policy.

38:578:527 Economics and Public Policy in a Global Context (3) Economic policy options around the globe; governments and markets; macro- and micro-level approaches; fiscal and monetary policies; competition and social protection: trade; labor; income inequality.

38:578:528 Employment Relations in Sports (3) Using a global perspective across different sports and related businesses, examination of union-management relations; individual talent; diversity; and safety-health issues.

38:587:530 Globalization, Corporate Restructuring, and Employment (3) Study of the impact of globalization and corporate restructuring on individuals, communities, jobs, work systems, organizations, and the economy.

38:578:535 Women and Global Labor Movements (3) How women are organizing worldwide for gender justice and an improved quality of life; how changing labor movements are addressing gender issues.

38:578:538 Financial Analysis and Corporate Governance (3) Corporate governance issues; financial statement analysis; and cost accounting for collective bargaining and workplace management.

38:533:540  HR Decision-Making: Financial Decisions (3) Financial analysis in the HR context. Cost analysis of HR and HR programs. Cost/benefit analysis, organizational finance issues, and HRM.

38:578:541 Women and Work (3) An analysis of women's experiences and status in a range of work settings; an evaluation of legal, institutional, and public policy responses to issues such as the segregation of work by race and gender, pay equity, the feminization of poverty, sexual harassment, and the restructuring of work and family roles.

38:533:542 HR Decision-Making: Data-Based Decisions (3) This course addresses research design methodology and basic statistics through regression analysis.

38:578:543 Organizational Leadership and Change Management (3) Theoretical and practical issues in organization change, including the rationale for change; why change succeeds or fails; effective leadership of change; and ethical concerns.

38:578:544 Creating and Sustaining a Learning Organization (3) Processes through which organizations learn or fail to learn; designing methods of education, training, and development that encourage organizational learning; theories of organizational and managerial cognition.

38:578:545 Disability, Work, and Society (3) The relationship of disability to income, work, politics, law, popular culture, and the built environment; lessons for all disadvantaged groups seeking social change.

38:578:550 Labor Law (3) The statutes and case law that create the framework for private-sector labor management relations, with special attention to current workplace developments and the public policy debates that continue to reshape American labor law.

38:578:551 Identity and Discrimination at Work and in the U.S. Labor Market (3) Social construction of identity and the consequences for contemporary diversity outcomes; intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and other forms of identity.

38:578:555 Globalization and the Future of Employment (3) Changes in the global economy and their effects on living standards, job opportunities, and the bargaining power of American workers and their unions.  Role of international labor organizations, transnational corporations, and global financial institutions in global economic change.  Strategies for dealing with globalization.

38:578:556 Employee Involvement and New Work Organization (3) Considers diverse modes of involving employee in decision-making and reorganizing work for flexibility, service, and better use of advanced technology.  Assess options, consequences, and the responses of organized workers.

38:578:557 Trends and Problems in the Nonunion Workplace (3) An overview of the nonunion workplace encompassing both research and practice;  covers surveys of employee attitudes, key issues, alternative vehicles of employee voice, conflict, and the use of new workplace practices.

38:578:558 Seminar in Workplace Democratization (3) Diverse models of workplace democratization on the job and at the strategic policy level, including joint governance, employee involvement, collective bargaining, employee ownership, worker cooperatives, and self-management.

38:578:559 Organizing for Social Change (3) Hands-on look at how people can take action together by creating organizations; recruiting members; analyzing and building power; designing campaigns; and developing winning strategies.

38:578:560 Collective Bargaining and Worker Representation (3) Unions, collective bargaining, and alternative forms of worker representation in the United States. Overview of both conventional forms of union membership, negotiations, labor law, dispute resolution, and emerging representation and advocacy strategies.

38:578:562 Seminar in International/Comparative Labor and Employment Relations (3) A comparative analysis of labor, social, and economic policies with focus on how labor movements in different parts of the world marshal political and economic resources to represent workers' interests.

38:578:563 New Directions in Collective Bargaining (3) Departures from traditional patterns of collective bargaining and labor-management relationships. Causal factors that are giving rise to innovative practices. The current debate over the future of collective bargaining. Models for expanding the scope of bargainable issues.

38:533:565  Economics and Demographics of Labor Markets (3) Covers the changing nature of the workforce, including diversity characteristics and attitudinal shifts.  Focus on human resource management tracking and gaining competitive advantage though judicious use of change.

38:578:565 Public Sector Collective Bargaining (3) The development of public sector bargaining rights and the role of unions in the public sector. The course will analyze state and federal laws, dispute resolution procedures, and political initiatives, with a special emphasis on New Jersey.

38:533:566 Employment Law (3) Principles of law covering the employment relationship. Some legal issues may also be covered in HR application courses.

38:578:566 Work and Social Change (3) Changes in the workforce, how economic and social changes are reshaping categories of employees, their organizations and movements, and their needs and desires. Uses both class and social movement perspectives to examine many types of employees.

38:578:567 Shaping the Future of Work and the Employment Relationship (3) Artificial intelligence, platforms, and other ongoing changes affecting the nature, availability, and rewards for work. Emerging alternatives to traditional employment. Alternative forms of representation and public policies for ameliorating related social problems.

38:578:570 Interest Dispute Settlement (3) The practice and policy implications of fact-finding, mediation, and interest arbitration in the public sector.

38:578:575 Grievance Processes and Arbitration (3) The practice and legal foundation of grievance handling and grievance arbitration with represented employees.

38:578:581 Structure and Government of American Unions (3) Patterns of union administration on local, intermediate, and national levels; effect of structure on the collective bargaining process; issues of internal democracy; and membership participation in union affairs.

38:578:598,599 Individual Studies in Labor and Employment Relations (BA,BA) Individually directed study by a student under the direction of an individual faculty member.

38:578:604 Creating and Administering Surveys (3) Issues for online, mail, telephone, and in-person surveys given their intended use. Samples; item construction; scaling; measurement validity and reliability; improving response rates; ethical research.

38:578:605 Action Research (3) Action research involves collaboration between organization members and outside experts in a process of improving organizational effectiveness combining insider knowledge with theory and data-driven research. Students will learn the basic processes of designing and implementing a social system change intervention using participatory methods.

38:578:610,611,613,614 Topics (3,3,3,3) Selected timely topics in employment relations; particular topics to be announced.

38:578:612 Labor/Employment History (3) The changing nature of work and its organization; history of labor organizations and labor movements; historical situation of major groups of nonrepresented employees; and the impact of changing government policies on employees, employers, and labor relations.

38:578:615-617 Issues in Labor and Employment Relations (1,1,1) Selected, timely topics in employment relations; particular topic to be announced. 

38:578:650-655 Selected Issues in Labor and Employment Relations (1,1,1,1,1,1) Contemporary issues in labor and employment relations; particular topics to be announced.

38:578:666 Asian American Workers in a Global Context (3) Connections between race, labor, and political belonging for the Asian American community; overview of interdisciplinary research regarding political representation, forms of structural exclusion, the politics of national belonging, and worker resistance.

38:578:690 Internship in Labor and Employment Relations (BA) Internship in a labor or community organization addressing employment issues; internship in a public- or private-sector management position dealing with labor and employment issues; or other supervised work experience related to the field.

38:578:694 Practicum in Organization Change (BA)   Research or practice in a real work setting undergoing restructuring or organization change, with particular attention to the consequences for employees and the ways in which their interests can be represented.

38:578:695 Practicum in Adult Noncredit Education or Training (BA) Research or practice in labor education, management education, or joint extension programming; research or practice in workplace training or continuous learning programs.

38:578:701,702 Research in Labor and Employment Relations (BA,BA) Supervised research under the direction of an individual faculty member.