Making Connections: Telecommunications Workers and 20th Century Labor History

Catalog description

This course presents a narrative of the last 125 years of American History through the lens of the telecommunications worker. As such, it is also a social history, referencing the life of the worker in the context of his/her times and examining shifting work patterns and attitudes about work as a function of those times. The tensions between the two major initiatives for the formation of unions, personal/familial gain and the desire for wholesale social change, will be explored as the course moves from the experiences of the earliest lineman and telephone operators to today's sophisticated electronic specialists. Students will be asked to not only study the texts and readings assigned, but to utilize the workplace as "text" for their evaluation of the relevance and contribution of labor unions to the contemporary workplace.