Dolores Huerta Labor Institute

Academic Advancement Initiative

  - New Curriculum and Courses

  - Resource Tools

• Consultation and support to develop courses
• “Approaches to Teaching Labor” Series on methods for designing a Labor History course or a labor-themed English course, with more disciplines  to be available. Primer on Labor Studies, a result of a retreat with over 80 labor educators and experts in the field which is updated biennially.  It  includes information such as “how much it costs to live in Los Angeles” and recommended readings and films for teaching labor studies
• Luisa Moreno Labor Studies Collection at the Southern California Library. Labor Studies Retreats to connect labor scholars, experts and faculty
• Downloadable web resources

Voices and Images Initiative

  - Speaker and Film Series

• Acquiring and suggesting speakers for specific events and topics
• Partnerships with other organizations to bring workshops and training on specific topics and issues to your campus
• Educational tools - readings and instructional materials for complementary use in the classroom with these events
• Logistical support - assistance coordinating events, including consultation and checklist

  - DVD Series

• DHLI supplements live speaker events with a DVD series of past speaker events so that those who were unable to attend the live event can still experience them
• DVDs available upon request 
• Podcasts and web media also available

Work and Life Initiative

• Student Leadership Academy - In partnership with the UCLA Labor Center, we offer a 3-day intensive leadership training for students interested in nonprofit careers serving working families.  Many students who go through this program receive job offers in the field
• -Summer Union Internship Program - Selected students participate in a paid summer internship at local unions

Labor On-Line Initiative

• Information and updates about labor issues and events in the community
• Information about internship, volunteer and job opportunities
• Instructional materials, primary documents, current research and other labor studies-related resources
• In development - Discussion forums
• In development - An online social networking community for students, faculty and labor experts who are interested in labor studies. We like to think  of this as our “Facebook” for Labor Studies

Student Voices

"As a student at Pierce College, my only exposure to labor unions has been through one chapter on the relations of unions and the law in my Microeconomics class and the plight of the worker and the beginnings of the AFL-CIO in my History of the U.S. in the 20th Century class.  These were good starting points on understanding labor unions; however, this is diminished by the monumental importance placed on globalization and corporate strategy. 

 

Up until the [DHLI co-sponsored] Student Leadership Academy, I was seeing the world through corporate eyes.  The Leadership Academy brought everything back into perspective—the struggles of my kin, my contemporaries and myself are not going to be solved through supply-side economics but through demanding the dignity and wages that are needed to sustain a decent life. 

 

The curriculum that I have been exposed to has taught us to think like giants of industries but has forgotten to instill in us the ethics toward our fellow humans that should accompany those responsibilities.  It has forgotten to teach us the methods toward change.  Most importantly, it has forgotten to teach us our own history because as students of the LA Community Colleges, we are the sons and daughters of that great working class that has made Los Angeles the amazing city that it is.  Thanks to the DHLI and the UCLA Labor Center, I have had the honor to witness Dolores Huerta and Maria Elena Durazo speak, I have been offered an internship with a labor organization, I will be pursuing a Labor & Workplace Studies minor at UCLA in the Fall, and I have found a new passion."

"My great-grandparents were farmworkers on the sugar plantations of Hawai’i. I never gave it a second thought or wondered what it meant to me until I took a labor class.  In this one class, I could see the personal and family ties I had to the struggles of all workers.  This one class made a difference in my life.  I want to see these classes at all colleges." 

“My mother is a janitor.  Her boss immediately fired her when she dislocated her shoulder on the job. I learned that her situation was not isolated and that many working people faced these conditions throughout history and still do today.  I want to protect myself and my family and learn to change things for the better.  At the DHLI, I began to learn how."