Award-winning author and longtime labor educator Jack Metzgar will apply a Keynesian macroeconomic perspective to the current economic crisis in a two-session class titled “Bailout Economics for Labor Leaders” being offered Jan. 21 and 28 by DePaul University’s Labor Education Center.

The course will apply the basic principles of Keynesian macroeconomics to the nation’s economic problems and have students develop and defend their preferred fiscal policy for 2009 and 2010. The course will meet from 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Jan. 21 and 28 in Room 318 of DePaul’s School for New Learning (SNL), 25 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago. The course fee is $60.

A retired professor of humanities at Roosevelt University, Metzgar is the author of “Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered,” which won the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award in 2001. He was founding editor of Labor Research Review, a Chicago-based national publication on organized labor issues in the 1980s and 1990s. A labor scholar and journalist for 30 years, Metzgar taught a similar course on the subject for 20 years at Roosevelt, where he was director of the labor education program.

In another event, the Labor Education Center will host Kim Bobo, founder of Interfaith Worker Justice, who will speak about her new book, “Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It,” at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in SNL's Room 207, 25 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago. The event is free and open to the public.

Bobo is author of “Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian Organizing” and co-author of the nation’s best-selling organizing manual, “Organizing for Social Change.”  Her Chicago-based national organization educates, organizes and mobilizes the religious community to improve wages, benefits and conditions for workers. Bobo was previously director of organizing for Bread for the World, a nationwide Christian organization that advocates for the world’s poor and hungry.

Other Labor Education Center courses and activities will be held during the first several months of 2009. Scholarships are available to help cover the cost of classes; contact the Labor Education Center at (312) 362-5823 for more information.

• Introduction to Labor Leadership, an 11-week course on public speaking, parliamentary procedure and comparative labor law. One track beginning Jan. 13 will meet Tuesdays from 6:30 to 9 p.m., and the other track, which begins Jan. 15, will meet Thursdays from noon to 2:30 p.m. Both will be held at DePaul’s Loop Campus (location to be determined). Course fee is $625.

• Advanced Labor Leadership, an 11-week course that includes a seven-week class on arbitration and four weeks on new labor relations, including labor-management cooperation, grievance mediation and mutual interest. Two class times are offered: a 6:30 to 9 p.m. track on Tuesdays beginning Jan. 13, and a noon to 2:30 p.m. track on Thursdays beginning Jan. 15. Course fee is $625.

• Book event: Bob Bruno, program director of Labor Education Programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will speak about his latest book, “Justified for Work: Identity and Meaning of Faith in Chicago’s Working-Class Churches,” at 6:30 p.m. March 4, at DePaul’s Loop Campus (location to be determined). The event is free and open to the public.

• Research for Organizers and Union Leaders, a two-week class on how to research your employer, will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 7 and 14 at DePaul’s Loop Campus (location to be determined). Course fee is $60.

• Sexual Harassment Awareness, a one-day workshop that defines sexual harassment and explains an employee’s rights in the workplace, will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. March 31 at DePaul’s Loop Campus (location to be determined). Course fee is $30.

• Tour of Pullman, a three-hour tour of the A. Philip Randolph Museum, the Florence Hotel, the green stone church and the Pullman Museum, will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 4. Fee is $30.

The Labor Education Center was established in the late 1940s to train Chicago-area union leaders. In 1993, it moved to SNL, where it currently offers a range of courses, activities and scholarships to individuals engaged in representing union members.

For more information or to register for any of these classes or workshops, please contact the Labor Education Center at (312) 362-5823 or contact Cynthia Martinez at cmarti67@depaul.edu.