School for Workers
Education for workplace democracy

2024 Shared Focus: Educational Access | School for Workers

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Jeffrey Russell, Vice Provost for Lifelong Learning & Dean of Continuing Studies, reflects on School for Workers efforts to educational access

By: Jeffrey Russell, Vice Provost for Lifelong Learning & Dean of Continuing Studies

Begun in 1925, DCS’ School for Workers is the oldest university-based labor education program in the nation. A two-part video hosted on YouTube goes into detail on the birth of SFW and describes the extraordinary, innovative, and vital impact the School has had on labor education across the state and beyond. Part 1. Part 2.

School for Workers (SFW) offers diverse programming that aims to “advance the empowerment of working people, labor organizations, and community partners through teaching, research, and service” and envisions “a just and equitable society, rooted in economic democracy, in which all workers have a meaningful impact in their workplaces and communities.” SFW faculty and staff conduct research, offer classes, provide consulting services, and much more.

Dr. Lola Loustaunau is a SFW faculty member currently engaging workers across the state through a Worker Health and Safety (WHS) program, thanks to a Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) grant. The program is designed to empower vulnerable precarious and migrant workers, who often face financial barriers to attending educational programming.

“Precarious” in this context refers to workers who may have irregular scheduling, including last-minute and on-call, difficult child care needs, earn low wages, face language barriers, are immigrants, or endure particular safety issues. In some cases their housing is tied to their employer, which makes pursuing labor education particularly risky for potentially both their jobs and homes.

These workers may also struggle to access information about their workplace rights due to factors such as geographical isolation, lack of union representation, hesitancy to trust government, and limited English proficiency. Some of the industries with precarious workers include construction, manufacturing, food processing, farming, and hospitality. Since November 2023, the 135 workers have participated in WHS trainings, with an equal gender distribution. Notably, 95% of the trained workers have been migrant Latinx workers. Two recent ProPublica articles, “Dairy workers on Wisconsin’s small farms are dying” and “When immigrant dairy farm workers get hurt,” shed further light on the situation of immigrant workers in Wisconsin and feature the work of Dr. Loustaunau.

Dr. Loustaunau and the SFW are committed to addressing these barriers to access by strategically organizing free listening and training sessions at various locations across the state, including in the evenings and on weekends when worker populations have more availability for programming. Their commitment to inclusivity and accessibility ensures that all workers can actively participate and benefit from labor education, regardless of their circumstances.

Through listening sessions, workers have been able to engage with Dr. Loustaunau in a safe place to privately share their experiences and some of the harrowing struggles they have faced. It has become evident that workers’ unfamiliarity with their rights, especially concerning health and safety, has had significant repercussions. A considerable number of these workers have sustained severe injuries and were denied workers’ compensation, mainly due to a lack of information, the complexity of the system, and, importantly, their employers’ failure to report these incidents appropriately.

The inability to access workers’ compensation benefits has led to a multitude of issues. These include the inability to cover medical expenses, lack of income during recovery from work-related injuries, and, in numerous instances, job loss. Over the months of conducting these listening and training sessions, workers have voiced the importance of becoming educated about labor rights and their intent to ensure their rights are upheld in the future. Dr. Loustaunau is working to compile data gathered from this work for analysis she hopes will determine ways for SFW and DHS to best help these populations going forward.

This is precisely the goal—to equip workers with the knowledge and tools to protect their rights in the workplace, thereby improving their lives and communities. Dr. Loustaunau’s work, and that of all of SFW staff, creates vital pathways to education that help workers to advocate for themselves and their futures.

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