Labour Education and Employee Development Schemes for Worker Empowerment

Work and learning 1
Work and learning

Work and learning 2
Topic: “Labour education and employee development schemes provide the best hope for
empowerment for workers and for the democratization of work.”
A plenty of organizations are developing and contributing in making the transition in to learning
organization for the mutual interest between organization and employees. The labour education
is being focused by trade unions in order to connect their representatives and members. The role
of the union is huge in the labour education as the major aim of them is to show the interest of
their workers in increasing education. Trade unions have responsibility to provide a voice to their
members which facilitates in giving input or implications to management. There are number of
opinions exist regarding the impact of labour education on worker empowerment and
democratization of work (Chan, 2015). Any kind of learning can expand the knowledge of a
person and make them aware about the situations in order to resolve the issues. The decision
making process of the union should be made by taking consideration of opinion of workers.
Unions can be referred as the process to democratize the workplace by involving various
processes such as negotiation way, general consultation and grievances. The primary union is
considered as CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) in the workplace of the author. The
involvement of CUPE is noticed in a plenty of processes by the organization, entailing the job
descriptions.
The role of CUPE has significant value in the development of the organization and in the context
of providing labour education. They help in improving major tasks and qualifications on their job
descriptions. The position of the author is the classification Analyst and is liable for the
development and making changes in the organizational structures and job description along with
the non-affiliated salary schedule. The role of CUPE is to include their members for the purpose
of providing feedback and suggestions. In the context of the labour education, it has been found

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that it is considered as the training and education that is taken into consideration by unions to
their representatives (Butcher & MacKinnon, 2015). It provides the training to help to make non-
active union members for the purpose of becoming active union members in the future. The
major role of it is to educate members regarding policies, amendments in the environment or
labour law. The role of them is to educate the members in order to make them aware about the
activities regarding the policies and changes in the environment (Goel & Vijay, 2017).
For a form of education, the role of the unions advocate is to facilitate employees for the purpose
of learning in the form of completing their mandates in the workplace. There are three kinds of
education offered y trade unions that is issues courses, tools courses and labour studies courses.
The tool courses are made to equip unions with an effective knowledge and skills for the purpose
of showing their members efficiently. It is helpful in giving better understanding regarding their
policies so t hat they can perform in well efficient manner within the business. It has been
analyzed that this kind of education has major focus on the collective leadership, bargaining and
grievance procedures. It also facilitates in reforming the daily activities in the workplace for the
purpose of making sure that work related issues will be addresses in quick manner. On the other
hand, issue course is another subject for labour education that depicts the number of concerns
like racism, work reorganization and sexism in the workplace. The main motive of this training
is to facilitate employees to understand the ongoing concerns that can influence in the
environment of workplace. This kind of education has significant value in the organizations as it
impacts the interaction of the employees in the workplace (Li, 2017). A labour study is third kind
of education which is commonly considered at universities or other kind of formal places. This
kind of study influences the management and the relation with the union, majorly at the time of
improving the collective bargaining agreement (Shields, et. al., 2015). It has been found that the