School for Workers

The School for Workers is the Department of Labor Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The

We offer a wide range of programs ranging from one hour presentations to evening community classes, two or three day conferences, week-long residential institutes in Madison, to multi-day labor-management facilitations involving a wide range of subjects. Our faculty also provide a wide range of applied research and technical assistance services.

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Values and Vision

We are personally and profess

ionally committed to help workers solve problems and realize opportunities in the workplace. We support efforts to raise living standards, increase employment security, improve health care and retirement security, secure safe and healthy workplaces, achieve due process, respect and democracy in the workplace, and revitalize our economic and political institutions. We support unions and the collective bargaining process as essential means for the pursuit of these goals. We are also committed to the broader socio-economic goals of working people including the enhancement of and tolerance for cultural diversity, the advancement of civil rights, the participation in labor organizations and other social institutions of under-represented and disadvantaged groups, the improvement of educational opportunities at all levels, the improvement of the environment and general quality of life, and the creation of meaningful employment opportunities for all workers. We seek to ensure that all workers including ethnic minorities, women, and people with disabilities have the opportunity to participate fully in our social, political and economic institutions. We are committed to a joint process of learning, critical analysis and action in which we work together with our clients to improve the situation of the people of Wisconsin and the nation. As an institution the School for Workers has attained a strong reputation and enjoys very strong support from its clientele. The School is widely recognized as one of the best labor education programs in the nation. Because of our long history and past success, we have achieved a level of credibility that allows us to take risks in labor education programming. We recognize our responsibility to the School for Workers, our clients and our colleagues to lead and innovate in the field of labor education. The School for Workers will explore all new educational methods, techniques and technologies that effectively extend new learning opportunities to our clientele. Finally, the School is committed to a process of recruitment and faculty and staff development aimed at selecting and maintaining an outstanding faculty and staff capable of meeting the educational needs of our clients in the twenty-first century. We are determined to meet our goals, which include improved service to our constituency, active involvement in the development of progressive industrial relations policies and the ability to respond to the changing education needs of our clients with agility and the highest concern for quality.

04/30/2026

Our 67th School for Workers Basic & Advanced Training Institute is happening this August in Madison, Wisconsin. Your lodge is encouraged to send officers, stewards and other local lodge leaders. Learn how you can register at https://boilermakers.org/sfw2026

04/23/2026

"No worker should be told that they can't organize."

Tyler Daguerre, co‑founder of the Independent Organizing Network (ION), talks with Assistant Professor Lola Loustaunau. The conversation explores independent unions, worker‑to‑worker organizing, and how workers are building power in non‑traditional workplaces—often without the resources of established unions.

Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/

Dr. Lola Loustaunau to deliver keynote at Anthropology 690 Student Conference

04/22/2026

Dr. Lola Loustaunau will deliver the keynote address for the Anthropology 690 Student Conference: Ethnographic Approaches to Migration on Wednesday, April 29. Dr. Loustaunau’s keynote, Trabajando Juntos: Community-Based Research with Immigrant Workers Across the Food System, draws on several years of community‑based research with immigrant workers who process, pack, and harvest food in the Pacific Northwest and Wisconsin. Her talk offers a behind‑the‑scenes look at what collaborative research looks like in practice—along with the tensions that emerge when working closely with worker communities while navigating the demands of academic research and publication.

Read more:

Dr. Lola Loustaunau to deliver keynote at Anthropology 690 Student Conference Dr. Lola Loustaunau will deliver the keynote address for the Anthropology 690 Student Conference: Ethnographic Approaches to Migration on Wednesday, April 29. The two‑day, end‑of‑semester conference is organized by Dr. Leonie Schulte and graduate students …

04/21/2026

Join Assistant Professor Lola Loustaunau this Sunday, April 26, for a screening and discussion of Los Lecheros: Undocumented in America’s Dairyland.

The event is co-hosted by the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and the Milwaukee–Waukesha and Dodge–Fond du Lac–Sheboygan–Ozaukee Wisconsin Farmers Union local chapters.

Following the screening, Dr. Lola Loustaunau will join a panel discussion with Mario Ramirez of Voces de la Frontera and Michael Slattery, a farmer and longtime advocate for immigrant rights in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Farmers Union

04/16/2026

So grateful to everyone who supported us from afar or joined us last Friday, April 10, to celebrate our 100th anniversary. It was a wonderful evening honoring our past and looking ahead to the future. ✨

04/15/2026

Join us today at noon! Register to receive the webinar link at schoolforworkers.wisc.edu/register.

Assistant Professor Lola Loustaunau and Tyler Daguerre, co‑founder of the Independent Organizing Network (I.O.N.), will discuss grassroots worker organizing and new models of collective action beyond traditional union structures.

The forum is free, but pre-registration is required to receive the webinar link at schoolforworkers.wisc.edu/register.

04/13/2026

The Slave and the Machine: Coerced Labor and the Origins of Modern Technology

04/08/2026

Join us today at 12:30 p.m. (CT) for visiting scholar Jason Resnikoff's presentation "The Slave and the Machine: Coerced Labor and the Origins of Modern Technology."

This free online event is presented by the UW-Madison Havens Wright Center for Social Justice Visiting Scholars Program in collaboration with the Center for the Humanities and the School for Workers at UW-Madison.

Click here to learn more and register:

The Slave and the Machine: Coerced Labor and the Origins of Modern Technology Register Here This event is presented in collaboration with the Center for the Humanities and the School for Workers at UW-Madison. Jason Resnikoff is Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Groningen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) where …

Photos from Wisconsin Labor History Society's post

03/30/2026

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Location

Madison

Contact the school

Click here to send a message to the school

Telephone

+16082622112

Website

http://schoolforworkers.wisc.edu/

Address

Room 1140 WARF 610 Walnut Street
Madison, WI
53726