Members are located in countries across the globe, and they include poets, scholars, activists, teachers, students, journalists, artists, small press publishers, and others interested in building the field of working-class studies.
[2] The association holds an annual conference and other events, promotes the field through a variety of awards, and publishes The Journal of Working-Class Studies.
A complementary series of biennial conferences sponsored by these centers fostered a community of scholars, activists, artists, publishers, and journalists invested in the study of and advocacy for working-class life, culture and interests.
Under the leadership of co-founders Sherry Linkon and John Russo, the center supported a range of activities promoting awareness of and respect for working-class life and culture, including an educational program in collaboration with Local 1375 of the United Steelworkers that brought college classes to the union hall.
[6] The Center for Study of Working Class Life was established in 1999 at Stony Brook University under the leadership of economist Michael Zweig.
The initial slate of officers included Sherry Linkon (President), Peter Rachleff (President-Elect), Jamie Daniel (Secretary) and Michael Zweig (Treasurer).
The WCSA grew out of biennial conferences organized by the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University starting in 1995 and, beginning in 2002, How Class Works, a biennial conference sponsored by The Center for Study of Working-Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
After 2017, the WCSA began sponsoring conferences annually, beginning with Class at the Border: Migration, Confinement, and (Im)mobility, hosted by The Center for the Study of Inequalities, Social Justice and Policy at Stony Brook.
Press releases are issued about the awards and announced through social media, awardees are archived on WCSA's website, and they are given and celebrated each year at the annual conference.
The Executive Committee consists of the president, the president-elect, the immediate past-president, the secretary, and the treasurer in addition to four at-large members and the chair of the Working-Class Academics section.
Past-president is Jen Vernon (Sierra College, California) and president-elect is Jeffrey Cabusao (Bryant University, Rhode Island).
Michael Zweig, professor emeritus and former director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has arranged for archival materials documenting the founding of the WCSA to be housed at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives at New York University.
[21] Archives related to the WCSA include those for the Center for Working-Class Studies, housed at the Maag Library, Youngstown State University.