Learning in Solidarity: A Union Approach to Worker-Centred Literacy

The article introduces the reader to developments with unions and literacy, a labour activity that is gaining a toe-hold on today’s union agenda. The historical role of unions and literacy is explored, as well as its relationship to more traditional labour education. Some tough questions are asked about who is participating in union activity and who is left out, and how literacy has the potential to reach many union members who are not yet active. The article takes the reader inside a class of night cleaners. Building on the the real situation of a worker/participant who has been injured, the instructor facilitates a learning process that builds literacy skills while exploring avenues for collective recourse. While union-based literacy challenges many traditional assumptions and practices both in the workplace and within the labour movement, it is gaining ground and finding resonance within a growing number of Canadian unions, federations and the Canadian Labour Congress. With a popular education approach that builds on the Latin American and other Third World experience, literacy is revealed as an important metaphor for inclusion and democratization.