This collection provides a thorough record of the internal and external activities of the University of Wisconsin Extension School for Workers from 1960 to 1982. In particular it documents the research and consulting work of individual faculty members such as University of Wisconsin-Madison based faculty Robert Ozanne and George Hagglund and the curricula and on the ground impact of the school's many institutes, workshops, conferences, and courses in Madison, Milwaukee, and nationwide. The collection is organized into: the incoming and outgoing correspondence of various faculty members; department files documenting the school's budget and the activities of committees including the Executive Committee and Labor Faculty Advisory Committee; subject files detailing specific faculty research and consulting projects; and course materials including the agendas, lesson plans, lecture notes, discussion questions, brochures, and other records related to specific workshops, institutes, and conferences developed on behalf of various labor unions. Photographs documenting these courses are spread throughout the collection. The collection also includes unique instructional films developed by the School for Workers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) such as "Health Hazard in the Shop" (1978) and "The Shop Accident: Employee Rights Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970" (1976).
The collection contains over 300 folders of the incoming and outgoing correspondence of University of Wisconsin Extension faculty members including George Hagglund, Irving Brotslaw, Robert Ozzane, Hervey Juris, Frank Lyons, Virginia Hart, Mil Lieberthal, Richard Ginnold, Harry Graham, Norris Tibbets, Robert Arndt, and Neill Declercq. The bulk of these materials focus on the research, teaching, and outside consulting activities undertaken by these faculty members. For example, George Hagglund's October 5, 1981 letter to Ruth Zubrensky details faculty projects and courses focused on sex discrimination, some of which are not documented elsewhere. Correspondence with Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) officials such as Marilyn Powers also provides insight into the implementation of the School for Workers Occupational Safety and Health training program and conflicts over teaching materials used during institutes for federal employees. Correspondence between School for Workers faculty and faculty and labor leaders in Australia, Sweden, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Jamaica, and Turkey and organizations like the Asian American Free Labor Institute reveal the international influence of the program and detail the development of international conferences and foreign study tours. Meanwhile, correspondence with local labor leaders documents both the development of courses and institutes in response to labor's needs and how faculty members advised union members on handling grievances and collective bargaining in real time. Furthermore, correspondence between Ozzane, Hagglund, and Dean Harold Montross documents the relationship between the School for Workers and the larger University of Wisconsin Extension system and concerns over funding in particular.
The department files include School for Workers final budgets, annual reports, program descriptions, and related correspondence and notes. These records demonstrate how the curriculum changed over time and reveal the school's specific accomplishments and challenges. For example, the 1973-1974 Budget Proposal in the Area of Minorities documents how the school conducted conferences on "Improving Communication and Increasing Minority Participation" and leadership training classes for 22 Black Milwaukee trade union members. These records also include meeting minutes, notes, reports, and correspondence documenting School for Workers committees such as the Executive Committee and the Labor Faculty Advisory Committee and faculty involvement in external committees such as the Select Faculty Committee on the Future of University of Wisconsin Extension and the University of Wisconsin Extension Salary Committee.
The subject files document specific faculty consulting and research projects such as Robert Ozanne's research in Latin America and George Hagglund's research on sex discrimination against women flight attendants used in the landmark Laffey vs. Northwest Airlines case. These records also document the Humanization of Work Project developed by George Hagglund in the mid-1970s through records such as project outlines, correspondence, and interview transcripts with Freeman Shoe Company employees. These records also document the creation of the University of Wisconsin Parkside Labor Studies program, and include the agreement between the School for Workers and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and the final survey of 59 unions conducted by University of Wisconsin-Parkside and the Gateway Technical Institute which revealed widespread support for the program.
The course materials provide a partial record of the curriculum of School for Workers courses and their impact on rank and file union members and professional union staff across industries throughout the 1960s and 1970s. These records include the agendas, lesson plans, lecture notes, discussion questions, brochures, and other records of specific workshops, institutes, and conferences developed on behalf of various labor unions. Programs on behalf of the Wisconsin Nurses' Association, the Wisconsin Professional Policemen's Association, and the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin reveal the unique challenges of collective bargaining in the public sector and the priorities and strategies of newly organized workers. These records also include summaries of the results of Safety and Health Questionnaires taken by students immediately following and six months after their training on Occupational Health and Safety. These surveys illustrate how these programs led students to identify and report OSHA violations in their workplaces. Instructional materials and lesson plans include original research on topics like grievance arbitration, collective bargaining, and occupational health and safety. While the curriculum aimed for neutrality, it also reveals the common understandings of these issues in academia and among labor leaders, particularly within the AFL-CIO.
