Unions are sometimes wary of dangers that the literacy issue may pose to workers — threats of dismissal, or of rigid hiring requirements. Nevertheless, unions have been somewhat quicker to develop an interest in literacy than have employers. Unions want their members to be better able to deal with collective agreements, benefit plans, health and safety notices, and the like; they want education for members who might participate in union activities more fully if they had better literacy or spoken language skills; and they want to assist workers to enter training, or secure job advancement or change. These claims and others are put forward by union federations, including the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Federation of Labour, and the Fédération des travailleur/-euses du Québec, which have developed resources for awareness and training, and suggestions concerning basic skills clauses in collective agreements.¹⁸²

Although program development has not been fast, the provincial and federal governments are promoting workplace literacy, and businesses are increasingly active. Programming is almost bound to expand over the next several years.

The impact of economic arguments has not been only on workplace programs. It is clear from recent history that an economic interest in literacy has been central in bringing the issue in general to prominence. It has allowed for some strengthening of all forms of literacy work, including programs that work for literacy for individual dignity and social equity. But this is a pattern that could be reversed by easily imaginable policy decisions. In the present economic recession, an economically driven interest in literacy could weaken considerably. Rather than training, at least training new employees, employers might simply screen more rigorously. In another scenario, a narrowly interpreted economic interest in literacy could result in a narrowing of literacy work, if federal and provincial labour-market ministries take over the greater portion of literacy work, and absorb resources that would have supported broader programming. Such an economic re-orientation of the whole shape of literacy work is sometimes discussed — and sometimes denied. A 1991 New Brunswick report says that "Many people (perhaps those not in the labour force) may be satisfied with their present level of literacy skills.... Clearly, there will need to be different solutions to different problems, and some priorities may have to be set." The report then develops proposals for funding arrangements in accord with the implied priorities.¹⁸³ On the other hand, the Ontario Literacy Branch has declared that funding workplace literacy initiatives will not be "at the expense of existing or new community-based programs."¹⁸⁴