10/07 2012

THE FUTURE OF LABOUR EDUCATION

JOHN ALAN SUTHERLAND MAIS 650 DR INGO SCHMIDT 2980775 ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY

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 of organized labours ability to achieve higher wages 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

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 partnership agreements 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

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 parttime 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

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

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

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 purpose to 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).

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

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)

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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