Karacho
The Global Labour University logo
Edlira Xhafa, Peter Rossman, Tim Pringle, Rick Halpern, Peter Cole, Jon Hyslop, Daniel Edmonds, Ms Debora Migliucci, Mr William P Jones, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Mr Marcelo Rosa, Mr Kjell Östberg, Lucien van der Walt, and Mr Peter Dwyer

Labour History

The history is not about the past; it is about understanding the present and shaping the future. What do the past struggles of labour movements, with all their tensions and contradictions, teach us today?

  • FREE
  • mandatory workload 5 h 03 min
  • language English
  • topics Interdisciplinary, Political Science, Social Sciences & Humanities
  • paid certificate included with certificate upgrade option

What is the course about?

An online course on the history of the labour movements across the word to deepen our understanding of the challenges of our times as well as sharpen our analysis, visions and strategies for the future.

By analysing historical examples of labour's responses to questions of democracy, dictatorships, authoritarianism, migration, capitalist crises and others, its achievements, but also tensions and contradictions, the online course creates spaces for critical debates about the role of labour movements today.

Check our trailer here

Key concepts

organising, democracy, authoritarianism, dictatorship,  anti-colonialism, migration, social movements, capitalist crisis.

Course materials and workload

This course has 4 content chapters. The chapter contains a series of units; each unit is composed of one video lecture, two quiz questions, one exercise, one key reading as well as additional readings. All the course materials, including video scripts, can be downloaded and used offline. Zoom workshops with the course experts are recorded and added to the course content for those interested in going deeper into the issues discussed in each video lecture. 

The estimated workload for each chapter is 10 hours.

Course certificates

Certificates are available for purchase from iversity.

If you meet the course requirements, you can obtain a scholarship from the Global Labour University. For details on the requirements, read carefully the information in Chapter 1, Unit 2.

Localised workshops

The Global Labour University Online Academy will also organise a series of blended interventions through its network of 140 local local trainers and online tutors in 45 countries, namely: 

Austria, Bangladesh, Argentina, Belgium, Benin, Brazi, Bolivia, Cameroon, China, Chile, Cambodia, Colombia, Ghana, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Vietnam, Germany, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Liberia, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Serbia, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United States, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. 

Let us know if you want to join a localised workshop by sending an email to online@global-labour-university.org detailing your country, city and organisation. For more details, check Chapter 1 of our online course. 

Course content

Chapter 1
Course Introduction
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How to study and engage in the online course "Labour History"
6 min
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Unit 1: Certificates and Scholarships
5 min
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Unit 2: Getting to know each other
3 min
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Unit 3: Join or organise a local activity
2 min
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Unit 4: How to use the platform of this online course?
4 min
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Unit 5: Etiquette for the online discussion
Chapter 2
Why Does Labour Organise?: A Historical Perspecti…
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Unit 1: What does global labour history teach us about organising?
11 min
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Unit 2: Chartism: the workers’ struggle for the right to vote and the birth of the first national labour movement in the UK
9 min
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Unit 3: Solidarity, Struggle and Organisation: Italy’s Federterra
10 min
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Unit 4: German seafarers´ resistance to the Nazi dictatorship
8 min
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Unit 5: Solidarity and Fragmentation: Building Workers’ Power in the American Meatpacking Industry
11 min
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Unit 6: Across Borders and Boundaries: How a Decade of Strikes Empowered the Emergence of the African Working Class
8 min
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Unit 7: San Francisco Dockworkers: Winning the union-controlled hiring hall
8 min
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Unit 8: Brazil: How a New Working Class Built a New Labour Movement
11 min
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Telling worker organising stories through Worker Art
Chapter 3
Labour Movements' Struggle for Democracy: Achieve…
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Unit 1: Labour's struggles over democracy: achievements, visions, and contradictions
11 min
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Unit 2: When Socialists Won Women’s Suffrage
7 min
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Unit 3: The Korean Labour movement in the struggle for liberation, democracy, and social and political rights
8 min
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Unit 4: The Swedish Welfare State and the Limits of Social Democracy
11 min
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Unit 5: Workers and Democracy in China
10 min
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Unit 6: Zambia: The Labour Movement as Political Opposition
10 min
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Unit 7: The struggle for democracy in Post-colonial Zimbabwe: Trade unions and politics
10 min
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Unit 8: Solidarność: Self-management and autonomy vs. the Authoritarian State
9 min
Chapter 4
Labour and the Migration Question: What Does Hist…
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Unit 1: Labour and migration: a complicated relationship?
8 min
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Unit 2: A Union of All (or Most) Workers: the Knights of Labor and Migration in the 19th Century USA
9 min
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Unit 3: How migration shaped the Argentinian labour movement?
7 min
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Unit 4: The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU)
12 min
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Unit 5: How Migrant Workers in the UK Organized Themselves (and Changed the Labour Movement)
9 min
Chapter 5
Labour Movements and Other Social Movements: Coll…
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Unit 1: Labour and other social movements: collaborations and contradictions in building a common political project
9 min
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Unit 2: What can we learn from labour feminists?
10 min
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Unit 3: Bridging the Divide: Race, Class and Labour in the USA
10 min
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Unit 4: How did the MST transformed rural mobilisations in Brazil
12 min
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Unit 5: The Labor and Environmental Movements in the United States: Collaboration and Conflicts in the Struggle for Environmental Justice
10 min
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Unit 6: The student and labour movements in Chile: collaborations and tensions in the common struggle
10 min
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Unit 7: The Australian ‘green bans’: a powerful example of Red-Green coalition in action
10 min
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Unit 8: From stigma to social movement: the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa
10 min
Chapter 6
Help us improve this course: give you feedback
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Take the course survey
5 min

What will you learn?

Upon completing this online course, the course participants will be able to: 

  • understand the variety of labour responses to key questions facing workers in the past and explain the main reasons behind those responses; 
  • identify and discuss tensions and contradictions in labour strategies, which have shaped the trajectory of specific struggles and beyond;
  • draw connections as well as similarities and differences among the different case studies analysed in the online course and ongoing struggles in their particular context;
  • apply the arguments and learnings from the case studies onto the questions facing the labour movement today and argue on the merits of alternative strategies from those currently pursued.

What is the target audience?

workers, trade unionists, labour and other activists, labour researchers and practitioners, NGOs, students, media and others.

What prior knowledge is required?

This is a multi-disciplinary course drawing on the fields of social, political and economic sciences. It is at the level of a Masters’ programme, but the concepts are explained in an accessible language and illustrated through examples. Therefore, it is also possible to participate in the course using the skills and knowledge acquired. The course requires a working level of English.

Course instructors

  • FREE
  • mandatory workload 5 h 03 min
  • language English
  • topics Interdisciplinary, Political Science, Social Sciences & Humanities
  • paid certificate included with certificate upgrade option