Labour Education For 2001

Abstract: How should unions educate their members and activists for the new century? Labour education trends in the USA, Canada, Britain (UK), Australia, and New Zealand (NZ) indicate that both incorporatist and independent educational strategies will prevail.

The Scope of Labour Education

"Labour education" refers to all education and training courses run directly by labour unions and courses run for unions by other providers such as colleges or universities. Labour education can encompass all labour studies courses targeted at union members but should be interpreted in this paper as excluding labour studies programs targeted at a general student body. Labour education has three main purposes:

* To prepare and train union lay members (and staffers) to play an active role in the union

* To educate activists and members about union policy, about changes in the union environment such as new management techniques or changes in labour law

* To develop union consciousness and support social action, to build common goals and to share organizing and campaign experience.

Unions have a small full time staff and therefore rely on the voluntary activity of their members to be effective: labour education is therefore a major contributor to building an effective volunteer force.

Most labour union members learn about the union while on the job (what is often referred to as informal or incidental learning). They probably learn more and are most active during disputes (for example in strikes, lockouts, grievances or negotiations), but they also learn from union publications and communications; from attending meetings, conferences and conventions; and from the union's educational programs. Although labour education only caters to a small number of members in any one year it is "social", as opposed to personal, education. It is designed to benefit a larger number of members because the course participants bring the education to other union members. Labour education has a social purpose -- to promote and develop the union presence and aims, so as to advance the union collectively.

Membership participation in labour education is probably somewhere between 3% and 5% in the five countries studied. This rate is considerably lower than participation rates in Scandinavian countries, which have conservatively been placed at 10%, and results in an even lower overall worker participation in labour education when the much higher Scandinavian union density among workers is taken into account (union density of 80-90% in Sweden compared to 17% in the USA). This level of participation may suggest that labour education is unworthy of attention but, as argued above, the education provided has a significance beyond the classroom. Also this education is non-vocational, essentially non-credential, it can be categorized as "non-formal" adult education and in spite of these low participation rates is probably the most significant provision of non-vocational non-formal adult education for working people provided in any of the five countries. For example 120,000 Canadians are estimated to participate in labour education every year (Spencer, 1994), far more than in any other social purpose non-formal adult --education program.

An Overview of Labour Education

There are three main types of labour education courses. Most of the courses provided by unions are tools training (eg. to train workplace representatives in grievance handling, health and safety, and recruitment strategies). The next largest category are issues courses (eg. on sexual harassment or racism) which often seek to link workplace and societal issues. A third group of courses can be labelled labour studies which seek to examine the union context (eg. labour history, economics and politics).

Tool and Issues Course: Tools courses directly prepare members to become representatives of the union. They are targeted at existing or potential union activists. They are often provided directly by the unions (particularly in Canada) but may also be offered on behalf of unions by educational establishments (as in the USA or UK) or by central union training bodies (Australia and NZ).

Many unions layer their courses, in that they have introductory and advanced programs. Some of these tool courses lead on to issue courses (sometimes referred to as "awareness" courses), they may also be targeted at the broader membership particularly if a union is undertaking a campaign, for example against privatization of public services.

Labour Studies Courses: The union movement also provides more extensive and demanding educational opportunities such as the ten-week residential Harvard Trade Union Program or the eight-week residential Labour College of Canada (LCC). The one- and two-year union supported programs at UK colleges such as Ruskin or Northern College can also be included here, although the courses tend to more remote from union influence.

These more extensive labour studies courses are designed to broaden participants' awareness of the context of labour unionism. They have been replicated in non-residential evening, weekend, day-release or distance education formats in all five countries. The programs of study may run from one to three years and the graduates may be awarded certificates which are often transferable to mainstream higher education credit courses.

A number of unions have sought to control these labour studies programs more directly and to make them more widely available to members, two examples are the Paid Educational Leave (PEL) program offered by the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW) (discussed below) and the distance education programs offered by UK unions such as the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and the amalgamated public sector union Unison, the largest union in the UK.

Other Labour Education

Unions are involved in a number of other educational initiatives which are strictly outside of our definition of labour education. These include union-run literacy courses many of which are tutored by fellow unionists and act as a bridge linking immigrant or illiterate workers to union concerns and publications. Examples of these can be found in all five countries studied. Similarly, unions are responsible for a number of worker-training programs which, alongside vocational training, allow the unions to educate workers about union concerns. The building trades and other skilled groups have traditionally been active in this area, as have the former International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) as exemplified in their collective agreements. But other examples can now be found across the spectrum: Unison and the Australian unions (and to a lesser extent unions in NZ) have given vocational training a high priority linked to national vocational qualifications and skill groupings (see below).

Within our review of labour education, a case can also be made for including some worker health and safety training in which unions are involved (this should not be confused with union safety representative training which is definitely labour education). These courses allow unions to argue for a union view (safe workplace) as opposed to a management view (safe worker) of health and safety. In LA (UCLA Labor Studies Centre), Quebec and Ontario (Ontario Federation of Labour) in particular, there are union-run or union-influenced worker health and safety training which have been successfully used as part of union organizing drives. Other examples can be found across the five countries. In many of these cases it can be argued that state funds, industrial sector or company money, as well as union funds, are being used to support "labour education".

Unions have also had some limited involvement in television and radio productions, with a view to educating the public and their members, and in computer networks such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees' (CUPE) SoliNet (see below). Some unions are also actively involved in training and providing speakers for school visits.

Labour Education in the Twenty-first Century

Given this framework, what kind of labour education best prepares organized labour for the twenty-first century? There is not a straightforward answer to this question, it depends not only on predictions of developments in national and international economies but also on ideological perspectives. Unions have always had a dual character being both oppositional to, and collaborative with, employers. Unions represent collective worker aspirations to wrest greater control over work processes from employers and at the same time are the primary bargaining agents seeking agreements with employers: agreements which incorporate unions into employer goals. The contradictory nature of unionism is reflected in all labour education but it could be argued that a greater emphasis on business unionism (representing specific groups of employees, negotiation and agreement, acceptance of management rights) as opposed to social unionism (seeking a union presence outside as well as inside the workplace, connecting with other progressive social movements and issues to advance the "class" interests of workers) will result in support for a narrower curriculum, a focus on tools training courses and workplace problems and less emphasis on issues and labour studies courses.

The different approaches to labour education will also reflect the different historical conditions and ideologies which have influenced national and regional labour movements. For example the kind of activist and agitational labour education programs provided by Highlander were a response to the difficulties of organizing unions in the hostile anti-union and racialized politics of the southern US. On the other hand the collaborative union-management education offered to UAW members in the union's residential centre reflects the dominant US business unionism approach (London, 1990). Within North America a distinction can be drawn between that dominant US perspective and the social unionism of Canada. Labour education in the UK, Australia and NZ has been influenced by state support for trained and responsible negotiators and by different traditions of social democratic government and workers' education. In Australia national social democratic governments have been more successful, the Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA) was trusted to provide union training, broader labour studies courses are scarce, and labour education has not been a major ideological battleground (Newman, 1993). In the UK narrow TUC-dominated tools courses have been contrasted with more militant workers' educational traditions and broader labour studies programs which did not rely on state support (McIlroy, 1990). NZ has become the experimental playground of the new right, and whereas labour education could be seen as developing in response to Australian (and to a lesser extent UK) experience, it now has to rediscover a purpose alongside the remaking of unionism itself. The question of wither labour education is also tied up in the bigger question of wither unionism in the twenty-first century?

Given the constraints of this paper I will focus on three areas of labour education for 2001: PEL, training, and distance education.

Paid Educational Leave

Arguments favouring PEL have been a feature of labour education for some time. For example legislation supporting PEL for union representatives' training was introduced in the UK in the mid 1970s and in NZ in 1986. The UK legislation was limited to industrial relations purposes but did result in employers paying wages for basic courses (typically 10 days release). The NZ legislation was broader but the length of time released was less. Employer-paid release for union representatives has also been a feature of many contracts in all countries but unpaid leave is also common, particularly in North America, where the union pays for lost wages. There are only a few examples of PEL for ordinary members, with the Ford Employee Development Assistance Program which operates in North America and the UK being the best known. The NZ legislative right was short-lived and given the current political and economic climate it is unlikely that new legislation or new employer-initiated schemes will be enacted. Is there then a future for PEL?

The answer is most definitely yes as long as unions are prepared to make PEL a priority in negotiations. Unions will no doubt continue to gain release for representative training and some of that may be paid fully or partly by employers. But that kind of PEL is not the wave of the future, the PEL program developed by the CAW is. As part of its contract with the employer the union negotiates a levy to be paid into its PEL trust-fund, the union retains control over the money and uses it to pay for lost wages and expenses of their members (not just representatives) who attend the 4-week residential PEL course. The program consists of four, week-long residential courses, usually separated by two to three weeks back at work. A CAW/PEL course would typically consist of 130 members subdivided into 6 groups. The course could be categorised as labour studies, each week of the basic PEL course has a separate theme: the present as history, sociology, political economy, social and political change (Spencer, 1994).

This program is not focused narrowly on preparing representatives for collective bargaining but on promoting an understanding of the union's social and political goals. The union's purpose is to provide a broad educational experience which challenges their members to question social, economic and political structures -- the dominant political hegemony -- and to review the role of unions in society. They discuss the relationship between national and international questions as well as those between union members.

A four-week residential membership education program is a model of the kind of PEL that can be won through negotiation, the union has made continuation of PEL a priority in all its contracts. The CAW/PEL program is now emulated by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and clearly represents a kind of PEL that unions everywhere could establish. It will be most attractive to those unions who wish to foster an independent workers' knowledge in order to contest hegemonic notions of globalization.

It is important to recognize that neither the employer nor the state has any influence over the PEL program. It is not employer-paid time off as experienced in some joint union/management training courses. Once the contract includes a PEL clause the money collected pays for the members who attend the course. They receives time off without pay from the employer.

Vocational Training

While vocational training is not labour education but an education for work, union attempts to influence vocational training have become central to union strategy in the face of globalization and restructuring (Evatt, 1995). Many companies are operating restrictive company-specific job training. The training increases the skill level, or the commitment (in the case of HRM training), of their workers but does not provide generally recognized training or qualifications. The union response to this situation is to argue for broader training programs to fit into a nationally recognized skills/education profile (as well as challenging employers to live up to their rhetoric on pay for knowledge). This argument resonates with government desires to improve the overall skills of the workforce and has gained some leverage, particularly evident in Australia (also a key to "strategic unionism", Evatt, 1995).

In addition some unions are arguing for a genuine participation in decision making at work, for real teams, more complete work cycles, more job control, and a say over investment decisions. To accomplish this they are demanding joint or union education on work reorganization to replace employer-only HRM training. In Australia they are also arguing that the skills developed in this kind of education (and in traditional labour education) should be recognized within the national vocational qualifications scheme. (In the UK a TUC push for vocational recognition of basic labour education met with resistance from some unions on the grounds that the vocational emphasis would undermine the social collective purposes of labour education and would individualize tools training courses, resulting in even narrower curriculum.)

An argument for nationally recognized training schemes fits comfortably within the labourist traditions of unionism. Unions seek alliance with the state to fulfil the broader state mandate to create the conditions for successful capitalism within which unions can flourish. Some of the larger more progressive companies can see advantages in a larger pool of skilled workers as long as all other companies are also having to contribute to its development. A tripartite consensus can therefore be established, although companies will generally argue for the least expensive options. A major problem is posed by the new right political ideology which argues for a reduced role for the state and by globalization of production and freer trade which can undermine national initiatives. One union strategy to help combat this opposition is to internationalize union demands for vocational training. There is some evidence of this in developed countries although presently there is little coordination between national labour movements and there is some unease within individual unions as to the extent of incorporation implied in this strategy. However, this trend will strengthen and continue to 2001.

Distance Education and the Internet

Unions have used forms of distance learning for sometime, particularly correspondence courses. More recently they have been experimenting with more developed distance education and with computer systems (Taylor, 1996). Distance education has been associated with individualized learning, it does not lend itself to social adult education, but placed in the collective context of unionism and given the move to greater interaction possible via computer enhanced distance education, distance delivered labour education is becoming more attractive. An electronic classroom and email moves this kind of distance education closer to the traditional union school which always involved classroom and informal learning -- gained via recreational conversation outside the classroom.

For example, SoliNet has been used by a range of unions in Canada to exchange information and to educate members informally as to current affairs and key issues by posting labour news items and encouraging exchanges between participants. Some paced, focused conferences, for example on the reorganization of work, have been offered. These involve a moderator acting as a chair, suggesting topics, and moving discussion along. This kind of conferencing perhaps fits somewhere between informal and non-formal education as there is little centrally provided information. SoliNet has also been used to deliver specific education courses such as the Athabasca University (AU) Introduction to Labour Studies. So far distance education courses have been favoured for delivering more sustained labour studies courses (Unison, TGWU, LCC/AU) but unions are looking to distance education as a cheaper and more accessible alternative to weekend and residential schools for tools training.

A CUPE/AU project to evaluate the use of computer-delivered labour education particularly in relation to "training the trainers" is now under-way. This will include a review of union use of the WWW and Internet. Some unions are already making use of the connectivity to provide specific information to representatives. For example, a safety representative in the General Municipal and Boilermakers (GMB) -- one of the first UK unions to use these systems -- might need information on noise at work, they access the union for advice, that advice may include connections to other sites explaining decibels, types of noise and noise damage. The union may also include access to companies specializing in the engineered reduction of noise and a conference in which union representatives can exchange information on how they tackled noise reduction in their workplace.

Conclusion

Most labour education consists of tool training and issues courses targeted at union activists. In addition, unions and union centrals, sometimes working with educational institutions, provide labour studies programs. If unions wish to maintain an independent labour education into the twenty-first century they will need to negotiate PEL and/or develop a distance delivered labour studies program. If unions want to extend their influence over work and jobs in the context of globalization they will argue for broader vocational training and skills recognition. In preparation for 2001 unions will expand their educational use of Internet to achieve these contradictory objectives as befits their contradictory nature.

References

Evatt Foundation. (1995). Unions 2001: A blueprint for trade union activism. Sydney: Author.

London, S., Tarr, E. & Wilson, J. (Eds.). (1990). The re-education of the American working class. New York: Greenwood.

McIlroy, J. (1990). Part II 1945-1988. In B. Simon (Ed.), The search for enlightenment: The working class and adult education in the twentieth century. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Newman, M. (1993). The third contract: Theory and practice in trade union training. N.S.W: Victor Publishing.

Spencer, B. (1994). Educating union Canada. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, 8(2), 45-64.

Taylor, J. (1996). The continental classroom: Teaching labour studies on-line. Labor Studies Journal. forthcoming.

Bruce Spencer PhD
Professor Labour Relations and
Chair, Centre for Work and Community Studies

Athabasca University
Athabasca, AB, T9S 3A3, Canada
Phone (780) 675 6347
FAX (780) 675 6338
E-mail bruces@cs.athabascau.ca

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This page was last modified on July 7, 1997.