Ericka Wills

Credentials: PhD

Position title: Assistant Professor

Phone: 608-263-6103

BA in English and Environmental Studies from Illinois Wesleyan University; MS and PhD in English Studies from Illinois State University. As a labor educator and activist, Dr. Wills has worked on education programs, internal organizing, cross-border solidarity, and building worker power during labor disputes for a variety of workers and their unions, from steelworkers to teachers and miners to flight attendants. She offers courses in labor history, globalization, labor film, union leadership, and other topics, both in-person and online. Her research focuses on promoting diversity and equality in the labor movement; addressing COVID workplace changes; advocating for the needs of women workers; and creating transnational alliances with workers and unions that bring people together across borders.

Selected publications

Wills, E., J. Collins Bates (Editor), L. Phillips (Editor), and S. Warren-Riley (Editor). Creating a Longer Table: A Conversation about Diversity in Grassroots Labor Organizing. Forthcoming from Ohio State University Press.
Wills, E. Stop Stock Buybacks!. no. May/June 2023, Dollars and Sense, pp. 11-18.

Read more
Wills, E. “Teaching about Labor through University Student–Union Worker Dialogues”. Labor Studies Journal, no. 37.1, 2012, pp. 81-103.
Wills, E., P. Hitchcock (Editor), and J. R. Leo (Editor). “Uno Mas: Transnational Biopolitical Labor Exploitation and Resistance in Mining Communities of the Mexico/U.S. Border Region”. Biotheory: Life and Death After Capitalism, Routledge Press, 2020.
Wills, E. “Miners Vs. Wall Street: Strikes in the Era of Asset Management Capitalism”. Non-Profit Quarterly, 2022.