Future for Labour Education

7/31/2019 Future for Labour Education

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MAIS 650 DR INGO SCHMIDT

10/07

2012

JOHN ALAN SUTHERLAND

2980775

ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY

THE FUTURE OF LABOUR

EDUCATION


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Labour educations future in Canada and throughout the world is tied to the rise and fall

of the fortunes of organized labour . Today the existence of unions is threatened by current

neoliberalism ideology and its policies of globalism which promote increased consumerism and

higher profit taking at the expense of lower wages and benefits for workers. These transnational

policies have been widely embraced by the governments of most nations to the detriment of the

worker. Unions are portrayed by globalisms supporters as obstacles to economic development

because oforganized labours ability to achieve higherwages and work concessions for its

members. Their critics complain that unions make nations and localities noncompetitive and

unattractive to global capital. Globalizations supporters such as the IMF believe that

unemployment in any country will be eliminated if wages are lowered in order for it to become

more competitive (Stiglitz, 2002). As a result of these global pressures the collective bargaining

power of unions has been restricted in many jurisdictions and government support for minimum

wage legislation has been weakened. As the strength of unions declines so has their ability to

attract and organize working people. Declining union membership also mean less available

funding for labour education. Without strong labour education programs the source of well

trained union leaders from the top down to the level of the shop steward and union local dry up.

Without strong labour education programs there is no training for union activism and to keep

democracy alive within the union movement. Without a strong labour education program there

ceases to be a source of knowledgeable rank and file workers to challenge the power of

capitalism and to seek social justice for the working people of the world.

The challenge for labour education today and into the future is to find ways to make

organized labour more relevant and attractive to working people around the world to join and

become active union members. Labour education must serve as the beacon to attract working


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people to unions. To do this labour education must widen the scope of its programs not only in

the ways they are presented but in their philosophical basis as well. Labour education must reach

out to working people and provide programs which provide solutions to their everyday problems.

How do we want to define labour education for the future? The rhetoric of todays

global economy includes terms such as workplace learning, teamwork, and the learning

organization in the context of what are referred to as the knowledge economy and the

learning society (Spencer & Frankel, 2002). This terminology is used to marginalize the

significance of unions (p. 169) and at the same time confuse people as to the real meaning of

labour education. In the new global economy workplace learning, as defined by employers,

has come to represent another way of describing employer funded learning focused on making

workers a more efficient and compliant human resource (p. 169). Workplace democracy as

represented by unions is under attack by employer driven partnershipagreements that

emphasize employer rights at the expense of workers rights (p. 170).

The global economy has seen the rise and dominance of large transnational corporations

whose demands can determine or significantly affect the domestic policies of prospective host

countries (Roukis, 2005). These global corporations and their domestic affiliates have changed

the international labour market. Globalization has increased labor bidding on a global scale, and

international worker migration has compounded the problem (p. 272). Global capital flows to

countries where goods can be produced as cheaply as possible requiring an available pool of

low-cost skilled and brainpower labor (p. 272). Workers are tied to a global interdependency

that affects employment stability (p. 272). Small and medium sized companies which are the

emerging type of organizations in the flexible global marketplace (p. 275)employ part-time,

contingent and often homebound workers. All of these factors present obstacles to union


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organizing . The proportion of stable, healthy and well paying jobs has been shrinking (Martin,

2004, p. 32). A majority of workers on a global scale are now engaged in non-standard

situations whether in subsistence, the informal sector, migrant work, temporary, contract or part-

time contingent work (p. 32). Inequalities in income are portrayed as an incentive to

productivity (p. 32) requiring more privatization and deregulation with attendant cuts to social

services and education as necessary structural adjustment to the needs of the new economy (p.

32). In this new age economy the definition of learning has been increasingly narrowed to

immediately applicable workplace skills (p. 32). Society has become less equitable, less just

and less colourful (Zullo & Gates, 2008).

Labour education has the power to help unions and unionized workers adjust to these

global changes by revitalizing the union movement. To do this it must find a way to make itself

more relevant to workers and their families. In the face of globalization many workers feel

helpless to do anything about their working conditions. Many working people believe that

unions have become ineffective in protecting their rights and jobs. According to a World Labor

Report (pp. 6-7) of the 70 countries for which comparable union density data were available 50

percent of them had experienced a decline in union membership over the last decade. These

trends have critical effects on labour education programs. When budgets are cut, training is one

of the first things to go (Stirling, 2002). The trend in union involvement especially in developed

countries is downward. Workers employed in public sector activities subject to privatization had

previously formed the bulwark of union membership prior to globalization. They now find

themselves among the ranks of the unemployed as these entities are sold off to private investors

who insist on organizational modifications, including force reductions and the utilization where

needed of contingent and casual workers (p. 274). These new workers are less likely to join


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unions. While many say that organizing needs to be unions number one priority (Widenor &

Feekin, 2002) that task becomes extremely difficult given the pressures on workers and the

decline of permanent full time jobs.

To make labour education more relevant to working people today requires a careful

study of what is successful labour education. It is important to distinguish between what labour

educators believe are successful means or techniques of delivery as opposed to whether working

people are engaged in the process of believing what is being taught is relevant to their needs

(Taylor, 2002). Labour educators understand that wage earners accustomed to daily physical

activity, benefit from interactive sessions (Zullo & Gates, 2008)and that group problem solving

is widely adopted. This technique along with others such as guided discussion, role play ,

debates, quizzes and storytelling still reflect a style of learning which center on the professional

training and acquired knowledge of the instructor and his or her objective of informing the

students on the technical or theoretical aspects of the topic (Zullo & Gates, 2008). This is often

described as the banking method of education because it starts from the premise that the

instructor has the knowledge and his or her task is to transfer it to the student.

This traditional form of education experience for workers is perpetuated in the lifelong

learning programs that have emerged with the rise of the global economy. These programs are

initiated in the workplace often as a Human Resources answer to corporate cutbacks in the work

force and the resulting need to find new work for older workers who have been or will be

displaced (Alexander & Goldberg, 2011). Often the most successful of these have been those in

which unions as well as companies have been joint sponsors. To provide equitable access to

formal, non-formal and workplace learning, experts urge community, business, education and

government partnerships (D'Amico, 2011).There is a need on the part of the individual worker


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who is in danger of becoming obsolete due to technology to participate in such programs. But are

these programs anything more than a short term fix and are they labour education?

Most workers who have worked at their job for many years have difficulty adjusting

to a return to a formal classroom setting for these upgrading courses. They often lack the ability

to grasp new concepts and technology. Lifelong learning is only seen as relevant if it can

produce a new job for the worker which produces income as good or better than the one they

have left or are losing. It benefits the employer because a worker who takes advantage of the

program will be able to be placed easier within or outside the company (Alexander & Goldberg,

2011, p. 10). It may also lead to increased productivity for the employer (Rose & Smith, 2011).

It may benefit the union if union membership is mandatory in order to take the program. But the

benefits to the average worker who has lost his or her ability to adjust to a classroom setting or to

commit to a computer generated online program are few (Belanger, 2008). Testimonials from

workers (Alexander C. , 2006)who have been involved in such courses stress their discovery of

the benefits of education. These benefits are particular only to the individual. They fail to meet

the challenge of labour education of expanding knowledge for all workers. Supporters of this

shift in learning in the workplace reject the claim that these educational partnerships of

employer/union result in a more co-operative form of trade unionism. Instead they claim that the

expansion of individual services can support rather than contradict a participative relationship

between union and member and conclude that partnerships and services can reaffirm the function

and character of unions as agents of collective purpose (Forester, 2002).

The basic flaw in these jointly supported lifelong learning or career development

programs is that they are not usually training a worker for work in the industry in which they

currently are employed. Instead the training benefits them so they can be employable in other


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areas of the economy when they lose their current job (Rose L. H., 2011). The teachers that teach

these courses often come from a background normally outside the workplace and worker

element. They represent traditional teaching. As a result they continue to generate suspicions

from the worker participants as to the teachers real motivations in teaching. Cooperative

educational endeavors between management and labor do not and cannot challenge existing

corporate interests and relationships (Rose L. H., 2011). Educators in joint programs are

focused on the individual rather than on the unions goals, the companys goals or societys

goals (Rose & Smith, 2011).

Despite the growth of these life long learning initiatives they are not labour education.

Labour education prepares and trains union lay members to play an active role in the union

(Spencer, 2002, p. 17). It is education of activists and members about union policy, about

changes in the union environment such as new management techniques, or about changes in

labour law (p. 17). It is education to develop union consciousness, to build common goals and

to share organizing and campaigning experience (p. 17). But above all it is social as opposed

to individual or personal education. It is designed to benefit a larger number of members

because the course participants are expected to share the learning they have gained with other

union members (p. 17). It has a social purposeto promote and develop the union presence and

purposes to advance the union collectively. It is education to support the labour movement not

education for work itself. It supports union organizational and membership needs. It can also

support diversity of opinion within society and social action. Labour education is for learning for

life inside the union and learning for life in general. People forget that union education is not

just about raising individual awareness or increasing a persons knowledge; its more seeing

those goals in a more collective setting (Nesbit, 2002).


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In Quebec the establishment of a formal labour college by the largest union, the

FTQ is a pushback against these joint programs. The objectives of the college are based on the

belief that there is a need to develop capacity to influence the social, economic and political

changes underway in Quebec (Laurendeau & Martin, 2002) not only in the union movement but

in the social and political life of Quebecers. Unfortunately the college is only educating current

union members without bringing in new members. Similarly the European Works Councils are

directed at those already within organized labour. They have opened up new fields for trade

union education that require not only worker/trade union control, but also a systematic rather

than an ad hoc approach on the part of labour educators (Miller, 2002).

Labour education has also been pulled in the direction of what is often described as

social movement learning. Social movements are usually groupings of people united by a

common interest in promoting or resisting some form of social, economic or political change

(Newman, 2002). Labour activists contend that unions have to organize beyond their

organizational bounds and liaison with neighborhood/community organizations (Roukis, 2005).

This class based approach has had some degree of success in South Africa and Brazil (Moody,

1997). In South Africa the focus of labour education initially was on abolishing apartheid while

in Brazil the focus was on toppling military rule. Social movement learning advocates the

independence of unions from political parties and political collaboration with other social-

economic groups (Roukis, 2005). Having won their battles against oppression in south Africa

and Brazil these movements have now embarked on new struggles to win traditional union rights

within developing economies. In South Africa a key challenge facing labour educators is to re-

assert the working class identity of labour education and to re-shape it to meet the challenges


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facing the workers movement in the new South Africa (Cooper, 2002). In Brazil labour

education has focused on purposeful resistance and discussion of hegemony as a means of

opposing the deleterious effects of neo-liberal policies, with proposals to overcome them and a

discussion of ideas aimed at designing a new society where social inclusiveness, democracy , and

respect for human beings and nature would be permanently pursued (Lopes, 2002). On the other

hand in places like the Peoples Republic of China the protective function of rights is seriously

hampered by political and judicial discretion and educators themselves can be subject to

marginalization and political reprisals (Yee, 2002).

Trade union education to be effective needs to be constantly adapting itself to the

changing needs of trade unionism in the face of economic crisis, deindustrialization and

unemployment (Smith, 1984). This requires moving beyond training a skilled, knowledgeable

and elite cadre of representatives to a future of providing education to its membership which can

see it as relevant to their problems and collective struggles (Smith, 1984).

Labour education in order to stimulate a revitalization of unions must be based upon

a philosophy. Unions with the help of labour education must develop a theory of the world that

allows workers to arrange and interpret their working lives, rather than have these driven by the

business ideology (Holland & Castleton, 2002). There is no neutral education (Martin, 1998)

according to the education activist and philosopher Paulo Freire. Freire does not provide a set of

ideas or rules to believe or adhere to. He offers us a way of thinking that can inform our practice,

a framework in which we can develop our own ideas (Newman, 2002, p. 219). Central to his

thinking is the belief that an education that transforms or liberates people involves those people

in understanding, demystifying and dismembering ideologies-even ideologies based on change

(Newman, 2002). Labour education programs based on the principles of Paulo Freire (1970)


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have four dimensions (Zullo & Gates, 2008): 1. the rank and file unionists teach instead of using

traditional teachers; 2. the shared experiences of the participants are the basis for knowledge

within the programs; 3. the programming involves a dialectical process of action and reflection

and; 4. the participants convene in a collectively determined cultural basis. Freires influence on

education for community development and social action would be difficult to exaggerate

(Newman, 2002).

The strategy of mainstream labor education has been tied to the principles and process

of the traditional education experience: it is a classroom agenda originating from the expert

instructor (after some consultation with union leaders) with the goal to enlighten the student with

new knowledge (Zullo & Gates, 2008). The emphasis being on topics of interest to labour and

with a purpose of preparing students for union administration (Zullo & Gates, 2008) and

leadership.

But Freireian inspired education starts from the principle that wage earners possess

the capacity to solve problems, especially when they act collectively (p. 181). They have the

technical expertise; they only lack awareness for their potential to overturn their oppressed

state (Zullo & Gates, 2008). This consciousness must be raised and this latent capacity

unlocked. The traditional banking method of teaching only mimics and reproduces the

dynamics of domination and oppression in society as a whole (Zullo & Gates, 2008). Freire

insists that liberatory education requires the use of generative themes (Zullo & Gates, 2008)

which are the daily experiences that frame peoples thoughts and language as a basis for

learning. This method draws on the experiences of the oppressed. This contrasts with traditional

learning which reinforces a societal construct that only a few are qualified to lead, while many

are designated to follow (p. 183). In order to encourage the rank and file to take over the


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teaching of labour education by the exercise of their leadership skills the professional teacher

must step down from the podium. Only then will there be a true bond forming between the

participants and the instructor because of the shared experiences that such an instructor brings to

the classroom. Rank and file instructors become powerful models for participants. Dismantling

the classroom hierarchy creates a sense of democracy that permeates the entire event (Zullo &

Gates, 2008). But rank and file leaders are brought to the head of the classroom only after they

have attended sufficient classes to show that they can confidently teach. This requires sufficient

attendance as a class participant and service as a facilitator.

The Freirian model emphasizes local and experiential knowledge as a basis for

learning and collective action (Zullo & Gates, 2008). It underscores the value of lived

experience as the medium for critical consciousness formation. Horton articulates the

importance of experience as a basis for effective education: Until(students)pose the question that

has some relevance to them, theyre not going to pay any attention (Horton & Freire, 1990).

Instructors use experiential knowledge to build a sense of common struggle. As Freire has noted

Authentic liberation-the process of humanization-is not another deposit to be made in men.

Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to

transform it (Freire, p. 79). In practice this connotes a dialectical process for consciousness

building where wage earners identify the major social institutions that oppress them, collectively

devise a strategy to address these conditions, and pool their talents and resources to implement

the strategy (Zullo & Gates, p. 186). Afterward these wage earners reconvene, reach a consensus

for what worked and what failed, modify the strategy accordingly and implement again. Through

this process workers locate the vulnerabilities of the institutions responsible for their oppressed

state and come to realize their own collective power. This approach is emancipatory in the sense


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that awareness and empowerment are the goals (p. 186). The strategy is to plunge wage earners

into an experiential cycle of action and reflection. The action-reflection loop is realized when

participants learn during the program i.e. action and return in subsequent events to share their

experiences with others i.e. reflection.

Freirian principles also require that labour education involve the culture of the

community in which it teaches. How is it possible for us to work in a community without

feeling the spirit of the culture that has been there for many years, without trying to understand

the soul of the culture? Without understanding the soul of the culture we just invade the culture.

(Horton & Freire, p. 131). Culture warms the atmosphere, liberating rank and file activists to

venture beyond their customary role as passive participants, allowing them to challenge their

perceptions of self-efficacy and nurture their spiritual and intellectual development (Zullo &

Gates, p. 188). When rank and file activists own the labour conference they invent cultural

dimensions that would never appear under a more conventional approach.Labour activists tend

to gain leadership by speaking, not by reflective listening; they tend to mobilize people behind

tangible goals, not problematize the goals themselves; and they emphasize the power of unity,

not the painful process by which differences are put on the table in order to build coalition

(Martin, 1998).

Topics must be rank and file driven in order to remain true to the empowerment approach

and to ensure that rank and file educators are comfortable with their teaching assignments. A

central ingredient in what Freire calls a pedagogy of the oppressed consists in training people to

continuously reassess, to analyze discoveries, to use scientific methods and processes and to

perceive themselves in a dialectical relationship to their social reality. By developing such an


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education, people could be helped to take a more critical stance towards the world and thereby

change it. (Holmstrand, 2002).

How can labour education based on Freirian practice reverse the decline of union

membership? Strong progressive unions require rank-and-file input into union strategic choices.

Such was the example of the Service Employees International Union, Local 1877 involving

8,000 janitors in Los Angeles. The largely Latino rank and file membership was educated about

the economic environment, the nature of the commercial real estate industry and the relations of

power among the union, the contractors and the building owners (Wong, 2002). This rank and

file education program was the key ingredient to the success of the strike.Unions have stagnated

because rank and file unionists do not sufficiently own their organizations. Union members

should be empowered through more transparent and robust union democracies. Unions have to

embrace diversity. Unions can be revitalized through labour-community coalitions. By entrusting

education to rank and file union members this can evolve into a tool for unionists to exercise

leadership skills which in turn spill into other union and community activities. The planning and

execution of the education format provides an experience in democratic process. Participants

identify strongly with rank and file instructors and create an inclusive culture that reflects their

shared experience.

Labour education has to learn to Start with Why (Sinek, 2009). Why unions, why

organized labour and why labour education? Corporate enterprises succeed when they have a

purpose, cause, or belief that has nothing to do with what they do (p. 41).In the age of

globalization people dont buy what you do, they buy why you do it (p. 41). Labour education

has to come to a point where it has to know why it exists. If labour educators dont understand

why they teach then it will be difficult to to convey the reasons to workers.


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In 1963 the United States was a country scarred by inequality and segregation

(Sinek, p. 127) when Dr. King spoke to 250,000 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in

Washington, D.C.. He knew change had to happen in America. His clarity of Why, his sense

of purpose gave him the strength and energy to continue his fight against seemingly

insurmountable odds (p. 127) . Similarly labour education needs to know a deeper why in

order to reinvigorate the union movement for the battles of the present and the future.


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