Service Learning OpportunitiesAt — Laborers International Union of North America, Local 585
This project will document and analyze the history of LiUNA Local 585, beginning with its founding in 1936, ultimately to the present day. Utilizing union meeting minutes, news items, archives and oral history through interviews, the student will develop a historical narrative of the local's role in shaping Ventura County's construction industry, labor standards, and community life. It will examine how the union has grown with the community to become a predominately Latino workforce and local political force. Beyond documentation, the project will ultimately analyze organizing strategies, leadership approaches, actions taken, along with political engagements and tactics over the years, across different eras. A goal will be to identify lessons, patterns and strategic frameworks that can help inform organizing today. At the conclusion, the totality will include historical accounts and practical organizing lessons for the next generation of laborers, creating a bridge between our institution history and future strategies.
Hands on archival research experience, historical analysis, oral history methodology. Interpretation of primary sources such as meeting minutes, contracts and archival news coverage, which they can then analyze them within the broader social, economic and political contexts of the time. They will be learning critical analysis of organizing strategies as well. They will examine, how over time, Latinos and immigrants were helping shape labor and construction in Ventura County, and through the region. There will be opportunities to build strength and ability in research, writing, strategic thinking, and community engagement.
There will be an informal orientation on the union's structure, history and operations, along with some current data we have. We will go over how we get politically engaged, and will educate them on our issues including collective bargaining. They will be taught of the understanding of our union and our core values, so they can utilize that when approaching the archival process and the analysis.
There is no significant safety issue, unless there is an opportunity to visit a jobsite, which would require proper PPE. This project will be skewed more toward academic archiving and analysis