The Asian Labour School is established as an institution of labour movement education in Asia, and an extension of Asian Labour Review. By offering an array of courses on critical movement skills and knowledge, our aim is to cultivate a new generation of workers, activists and students to revitalise mass, democratic and radical labour movements in Asia. The School is for anyone interested in learning to become more effective organisers, or expanding their knowledge of Asian labour movements. We combine skills and knowledge from the movement and in research to help participants to become historically and theoretically informed of our movement.
For the Oct-Dec 2025 semester, we are offering the following courses:
Labour, Power and Strategies
Effective Principles for Effective Organisation and Mobilisation
In this course, we will collectively grasp the fundamentals of labor activism, organizational forms, collective actions, and collective power. Over six engaging sessions, we will explore essential principles that drive effective organization and mobilization within labor contexts.
Writing Worker Stories
Movement-Centered Labour Journalism
This course introduces students to a movement-centered approach to writing labour stories for publishing. We teach the values and perspectives of this approach, and the practical storytelling skills necessary to tell compelling workers’ stories. This course requires no prior experience in labour journalism. It is ideal for someone wishing to learn the basic elements of writing labour stories.
Labour’s Polycrisis and Our Disenchantment
You are all observing what’s going on in the world of labor, in our immediate workplace, in our community and in the national and international labor movement. What are you seeing? What fascinates and intrigues you? Are you feeling energetic and inspired? What frustrates and disappoints you? How can we make sense of all these observations and feelings? I see a widespread feeling of frustration, a sense of getting stuck, despite many impressive and inspiring struggles. Let’s figure out together why we are stuck and how we can become unstuck.
Worker Cooperatives: Can Cooperating Transform How We Work Together?
Worker cooperatives are enterprises that are owned and governed by workers. When all of our working experiences have been in profit-maximizing enterprises, or in workplaces that are structured hierarchically, it is no wonder that we can encounter challenges when attempting to run an enterprise democratically. In this course we will explore the challenges and tensions when there are no bosses to hate!
To contact us: convenor@labourschool.org
