Jazmin Rivera | August 12, 2024

On May 1st, a classroom of world history students at Portola Middle School in Tarzana, California, viewed pictures of workers using large machinery to produce steel in a mill in 1892 Homestead, Pennsylvania. The Young Worker Education Project director Nicolle Fefferman asked the students to consider what it must have felt like to work in that room—what smells, sounds and feelings were the workers experiencing?

As students discussed their answers with each other, UCLA undergraduates enrolled in the cross-listed Labor Studies course, 136M: “Working Families and Educational Inequalities in Urban Schools” walked around the classroom to support their small group discussions. This was the first day of a week-long simulation lesson on the Homestead Strike led by the Young Worker Education Project (YWEP). By the end of the week, students learned about monopolies, unions and the labor tensions of the Gilded Age.

The YWEP is a visiting educational curriculum that teaches LAUSD students about worker-led decision making by facilitating week-long role play scenarios inspired by historical events. Open-ended discussions, student-led conversations and collaborations with UCLA undergraduate volunteers and community members are hallmarks of the YWEP. 

Students come alive through these lessons. Quiet high school classrooms turn into a frenzy of passionate students itching for their moment to talk. Shy middle schoolers feel empowered to raise their hand and offer their insight, which is then met with encouragement from their peers. UCLA undergraduates, at first nervous to lead in the classroom, grow into their role as educators.

“I enjoyed being able to work with students one-on-one and get a feel for different teaching pedagogies and classroom environments,” said Marisol Mercado, a UCLA undergraduate. “I hope to use some of [the teacher’s] techniques in the future as I continue to explore my educational opportunities”

UCLA undergraduates also noted the value of having middle school students gain a deeper understanding of worker protections.

“I believe it is super important for these students to know labor history and laws regarding labor, as many of them will be going to high school and soon start working,” said Vikki Fierro, an Education and Social Transformation major.

Beyond classroom simulations with the YWEP, a group of UCLA students in LS136M conducted four online workshops with UCLA YouthSource, a center that offers programs for youth who reside in Los Angeles county between the ages of 14-24. Using a train-the-trainer method, UCLA students led a two-part know-your-worker-rights workshop that covered wage theft and how to read a paycheck. Every Wednesday afternoon in the month of May, YouthSource students gathered on Zoom to learn about their rights as workers, with the UCLA students facilitating the workshops drawing on their own experiences as young workers to teach the lessons. After the month was over, the workshops directly impacted nearly 50 students.

Students of LS136M ended the Spring quarter by brainstorming topics they would like to see covered in future workshops, such as “What is a union?” “How to balance school and work” and “How to take time off.” As workplace readiness curriculum is implemented statewide through AB 800—legislation that requires all California public schools to teach their students about workplace readiness and labor rights—the next generation of workers will directly engage with these questions and many more, both in the classroom and beyond it.

UCLA Labor Studies is the first major of its kind at the University of California. Renowned for its commitment to engaged student learning in community worker settings, rigorous hands-on research and courses that explore some of the most pressing labor and social justice issues, the program became a major in 2019 after being established as a minor in 2014.