This section of the report describes the impacts of some of the specific projects and activities that were drawn from the data sources. Impacts were felt by five groups of people involved in workplace literacy and essential skills: business organizations and employers; labour organizations and their local constituents; educational practitioners and experts; program participants, and the community at large. These impacts also cover the three periods of time of the Business and Labour Partnership Program.
During the foundation building years (1988-1995) and the beginning of the development and demonstration period, impacts on workplace literacy practices were widespread. Many projects focused on customizing a curriculum for a specific worker audience or workplace setting. For example, during this period, the BEST program became a beacon for other Federations of Labour. As well, union training events helped to open up viewpoints, and overall, increased awareness about the importance of workplace change. As a result, recognition that ESL was a workplace training need surfaced. Much of the knowledge gained from these activities and projects was disseminated through the International Workplace Learning conferences and plain language forums that were popular at the time.
During the development and demonstration period (1996-2000), the NLS-sponsored think tanks encouraged divergent points of view and helped consolidate an emerging field of workplace practice. These think tanks were national forums for all key stakeholders in literacy. During this period, new workplace structures were created, as was the case with the Directors of Training Centres from one labour organization who formed a national committee to help coordinate labours’ response to the literacy issue. The model of consortia, provincial project teams, and steering committees developed and became successful vehicles for leveraging and bargaining for more resources in the community. The following excerpt from a recent WEMSC report describes this.
“Underlying every education program is a particular vision of society and what it means to be human.”
Connor-Unda, J. (2001). Seeds for Change: A Curriculum Guide for Worker-centred Literacy. Canadian Labour Congress.