Old and New Social Movements As Learning Sites: Greening Labor Unions And Unionizing the Greens

Abstract

The discussion about the importance of new social movements as learning sites has focused on the understanding of their role as facilitators and providers of informal learning and education. Within Adult Education Quarterly Welton has contested Finger's emphasis on new social learning movements as "strategies of individual survival" by arguing they are concerned with collective goals and social purpose. However, even Welton has ignored the learning that is taking place in labor unions (old social movements) and therefore has privileged new social movements over old social movements as defenders of the "lifeworld and ecosystem." This paper contests this viewpoint and examines current Canadian labor education practices, concentrating on union education directed at environmental issues. It argues that labor is adopting some of the concerns and educational practices of new social movements and that old and new can learn from each other. A subsidiary argument is that labor continues to represent working people whereas new social movements are dominated by the middle class; therefore a truly "collective defense" of the lifeworld and ecosystem must embrace labor's concerns.