Introduction to the Canadian labour movement:
- CLC
represents 2.5 million members, over 30% of labour force
- worker-led
- self-financed
- the
changing face of the labour movement:
- shift
away from industrial, manufacturing base towards smaller workplaces, service
industry
- now
almost half of union membership is women, large numbers of workers of colour,
2nd language speakers
- teachers, nurses are choosing to join the labour movement in recent
years
- need
to rethink who our audience is, how we are going to reach them
effectively
- theme
of not only organizing workers into unions, but "organizing the
organized".
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The
connection to literacy:
| The labour movement has a long tradition of worker education, fight
for public education, libraries, literacy, ESL. (Refer to A Quest for
Learning: The Canadian Labour Movement and Worker Literacy
Education.) |
- focus on
both union members, Canadian public: common good.
- ongoing
theme of empowering workers to take control of their lives, individually and
collectively.
- in the
1980's and 1990's, unions got increasingly involved in literacy
work.
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They
recognized that there were large numbers of members who could not participate
fully in the workplace, union, home and community because they hadn't had a
chance to finish school or had come from another country and didn't have
adequate skills in English or French.
With funding from
some provincial governments, the National Literacy Secretariat and union funds,
unions began negotiating time and a place for workers to learn. They developed
programs in keeping with union philosophy: empowerment of workers, co-worker
instructors, confidentiality, popular education. (BEST, WEST, EAST, LEAP,
Quebec, etc.) But there
was something missing: while it was great that unions were involved in
negotiating time for workers to learn and running programs, the labour movement
continued to produce vast amounts of print material, sign collective agreements
and be governed by constitutions, by-laws and resolutions that were
inaccessible to most of our members.
(Overhead: example from collective
agreement, CLC's Economy)
- clear
language is the flip side of literacy: it has to be a two-way
street.
- clear
language in the labour movement is more than technical approach: this is about
workers having ownership of their lives/organizations, not about
efficiency.
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Case
Studies:
- CAW
constitution
- St.
Christopher House collective agreement
- SFL
resolutions
- CLC:
labour education courses, convention resolution to rewrite constitution in
clear language resolution, CLC Clear Language screen and binder, staff
training.
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Institutional Change:
- points of
resistance: tradition, precedent, staff reps / elected leaders holding on to
power, possibility of an arbitrator ruling in the union's favour if language is
ambiguous.
- hope for
the future: openness, connection to membership, in keeping with union
philosophy, willingness to learn / unlearn.
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