MAPL 631 Labor and the Political Economy

MAPL 631 is a labor concentration course in the Master of Advocacy and Political Leadership (MAPL) Program. The course will study the history and current status of collective bargaining issues through the lens of the political economy, i.e. the intersection of economics and politics. Early sessions of the course will provide a theoretical and historical grounding in basic concepts in the political economy of labor, both generally and in the specific context of the United States. In later classes, we will consider a number of contemporary political-economic issues in light of these concepts, issues like the minimum wage, the right to work, and whether employees should have any control over the compensation for and conditions of their jobs. Students will examine and debate these issues from several political-economic perspectives.