"Connecting Community and Academic Activism Workshop Series"

The Workers Rights Board is a volunteer association in Tucson and Southern Arizona which runs a hotline and provides counseling and information for workers who feel their rights have been vioated in the workplace. The board keeps records of violations, provides a community voice to workers to provide "moral" pressure to local employers to honor workers rights. The centralized gathering of information on violations and actions taken (or not taken) to address workers rights violations enables the board to play a unique role in organizing and tracking local labor issues. Volunteers are always needed for the hotline and if you or someone you know is unsure of workplace rights, please call the hotline for assistance.

Readings and resources relevant to this project (ideas for course content connections)

Local Workers Rights Referral Information:

• Attorney General, Civil Rights Division: 520-628-6779 (Discrimination--race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical disability)
• Arizona State Labor Department: 602-542-4515 (Claims for unpaid wages)
• Fair Labor Standards, Federal Department of Labor: 602- 640-2990 (Minimum wage violations, overtime, child labor standards, FMLA, government constructions contracts)
• Family Medical Leave Act, Federal Dept. of Labor (sick leave concerns)
• Arizona State Department of Economic Security 520-293-1919 (Unemployment insurance)
• Department of Economic Security, Office of Appeals: 520-881-1360
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration: 520-322-8008 (Health and safety on the job concerns)

Books

• Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906.  Available online in digital form: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Sinclair/TheJungle/
• Weinstein, Cindy. The Literature of Labor and the Labor of Literature: Allegory in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Bibliography from "Bottom Dog Press": Working Class Literature
• Bibliography from "Bottom Dog Press": Working Class Film
• Klaus, H. Gustav, The Literature of Labour, Brighton, 1985
• Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins. The Portion of Labor. New York; London: Harper and Bros., 1901.
• Hay, John. The Bread-Winners, a Social Study. New York: Harper and Bros., 1884.
• Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1937.
• Morrisson, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971.
• Nichols, Charles. The Milagro Beanfield War. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974.
• Overtime: Worker Writer Anthology, 1979-1989. Selections from the Mill Hunk Herald. West End Press, 1990.
• Sayles, John. Union Dues. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977.
• Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. 1848. online:  http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1848-CM/cm.html
• Houston, Bob. Bisbee 17, (1979) 1999.

Related Activist Projects and Grassroots Groups

Bibliographies and primary resources

• Youngstown State University Working Class Studies Workers and Workplace Bibliography
• Youngstown State University Working Class Studies Labor History Bibliography
• Youngstown State University Working Class Studies Working Class Fiction Bibliography

Sample Syllabi