Basic Education for Women at Work
As women have less opportunity or time to pursue training outside family and work responsibilities, it was considered important to hear about alternative strategies for reaching women. Representatives from the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) were invited to present information on their workplace literacy programs, but were compelled to cancel. Instead, Karen Geraci presented information about the Preparatory Training Program of Toronto and Judith Bond spoke about the Workplace Training and Services of the Toronto District School Board.

The Preparatory Training Program (PTP) is the single largest funded literacy program in Ontario. Sixty percent of the clients are social assistance recipients and are routed to PTP through Ontario Works. Most live below the poverty line and most of the women are younger than 34 years of age. The program is narrowly focused to work towards the quickest route to employment and off social assistance. Though this may be limited, it was suggested that where the regular school system allows for thirteen years to learn the basics, adult learners don't have the same luxury of time. As well, instructors have found that learning works best when it begins with the concrete or specific skills and works toward the abstract.

PTP can be found at: www.ptp.ca.

Workplace Training and Services (WTS) is an initiative of the Toronto District School Board which otters a variety of training, including basic skills in language and math, to employers and employees in the workplace. Ontario, which cancelled its extensive workplace program in 1997, is now the only province without a government-sponsored initiative for such training and so WTS must provide its training on a cost-recovery basis. Broadly, the issues covered in WTS training are diversity, clear language and design, basic skills, supervisory approaches, organizational skills, job task analysis, problem solving and change management. Programs are custom designed to meet the needs of a specific workplace and to build on what learners already know. WTS also provides workplace training in areas of human rights and workplace harassment.

WTS can be found at: www.trainingwts.com.

Worker-Centred Learning Programs for Women and Their Families
An innovative way to provide training for women is to incorporate the needs of families. Ann Haney and Florence Marquez of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, Local 459 (in Winnipeg), presented information on a Learning Experience Centre (LEC) which offers training in basic skills, including computer literacy and ESL, to union members and their families.

In order to run LEC, the union had to negotiate agreements with several parties: workplace management, federal and provincial governments (as funders) and union members (whose dues partly fund LEC). The LEC mission is "to provide members and their families with a warm and friendly environment, to meet individual needs and to give women opportunities to develop foundation skills." The attempt is to create a "home away from home" so learners feel comfortable and welcome. Organizers found that a secondary benefit to workplace training has been increased connection between workers, who may have worked side by side before and never spoken. As well, students have gone on to other studies, have become more involved in their union and, in some cases, have become leaders at work and in the union.

Future goals of LEG are to become self-sufficient (as funds are always in question), to find ways to share the curriculum and the learning from the LEG, and to develop more networks with other unions, training agencies and literacy and family programs.

The LEG of UNITE Local 459 can be contacted at: 204-956-4868 or ahaney@mb.sympatico.ca.