Labor's Involvement in Workplace Education

Abstract

Adult educators have long considered workplace learning an important aspect of the field. There are, however, different models for workplace and worker learning. Too often, adult educators have focused on workplace learning as a means of improving productivity. Less attention has been paid to the goals of workers and to the non-employer-based kinds of programs that are found within unions and worker education programs. This issue presents different models for thinking about the state of worker education and its connection to the labor movement. Of course, attention to the lives of workers is an ongoing concern, which raises the issue of politics and social control. Are workplace programs intended to stifle discourse and dissent or to encourage it? John Dewey, who carefully considered vocational education, concluded that well-designed formal learning situations could give those who engage in industrial callings desire and ability to share in social control, and ability to become masters of their industrial fate (1944, p. 320). Yet, Dewey himself recognized the problems inherent in such a position. How could individuals actually take control over their fate? As we approached this issue of Adult Learning, we tried to think about the contradictions inherent in the topic itself. On the one hand, if we think of the topic as merely being concerned with workforce education, then we can think about the issue programmatically. That is, when programs function at their best today, learners can help construct programmatic aims and take responsibility for achieving outcomes. The topics can vary from matters of workplace safety and productivity to personal development, portable skills, and college degrees. Yet, at the same time, all of these models are predicated on a notion of the individual taking control, not on the worker or on a movement. Within this idea, there is no sense of class. Thus, each worker engages in learning in this sense, to gain control of his/her own fate. Unfortunately in the 21st century, this sense of control at work feels more and more elusive. This issue of Adult Learning, then, attempts to draw a picture of the breadth of workplace learning efforts. Building on Spencer's meta-analysis of labor unions' impact on workplace education, we agree that employer-focused instruction may feel like indoctrination into company culture rather than individual development Discussions of worker-organized workplace learning and, more generally, union-organized education need to acknowledge the real issues of power, authority, control, and ownership. They need to promote independent workers' learning opportunities for a more real empowerment and a more genuine workplace democracy (Spencer, 2010, p. 261). We have attempted to provide a glimpse of some aspects of this issue and have included collaborative models of workplace learning, highlighting some of the problems that can result when constituencies and their needs are ignored. The first few articles in this issue offer specific models of cooperation between labor and management that go beyond the traditional dichotomous approaches. Admittedly, this issue focuses, perhaps too much, on joint labor/ management programs. For example, Goldberg and Alexander, D'Amico, and Smith present models of joint-labor management programs that focus on individual development within a workplace learning situation. …