Labor (journal)

Labor: Studies in Working-Class History is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of the labor movement in the United States, including non-union agricultural work, slavery, unpaid and domestic labor, informal employment, and other topics. While the primary focus is on the United States, the journal also covers labor movements in North and South America as well as transnational comparisons that shed light on the American labor movement. It is the official journal of the Labor and Working-Class History Association and is published by Duke University Press. The editor-in-chief is Julie Greene (University of Maryland, College Park) who took over the role when the founding editor, Leon Fink (University of Illinois at Chicago), stepped down in July 2023.

History
The journal was established in February 2004 when Fink, along with the entire editorial board of Labor History and much of the staff, left that publication after a disagreement with publisher Routledge over the direction of the journal. According to Fink, the principal issue was maintaining the journal's editorial independence. Labor is endorsed by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, as a SPARC Alternative. In 2016 the board voted to adjust the subtitle to Labor: Studies in Working-Class History to reflect a new transnational scope that stretched beyond the Western hemisphere.

Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in: • EBSCO databases

• Emerging Sources Citation Index

• MLA International Bibliography

• Scopus

• Sociological Abstracts According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2022 impact factor of 0.1.

Awards
Labor was chosen "Best New Journal" by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals in 2005.