| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 55

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

D.W. Livingstone and Peter H. Sawchuck, Hidden Knowledge: Organized Labour in the Information Age (Aurora, ON: Garamond Press 2004)

THIS COLLECTION of case studies is another useful contribution to our understanding of workers' knowledge. It bears witness to the persistence and continuation of know-how and learning and tilts at the contemporary mantra that workers everywhere need to "re-skill" and continuously learn if they are to participate in the "learning society."

An introductory chapter is followed by an introductory section titled "Researching Learning and Work," that is followed by Part II, "Case Studies," the "meat" of the book. The case studies range from the auto industry, small parts, and chemicals to a community college and garment manufacturer. Part III, "Comparative Perspectives Across Case Studies," is a bit misleading as it sets out to draw comparisons across the case studies in relation to home and community first and then come to some general conclusions on work and learning drawn from the case studies.

The introductory chapter provides the authors' perspective on work and learning and those familiar with their other work will find no surprises. Their observations that the literature on issues of social class and education is scant as are work-based case studies may ring true for North America and for adult education respectively. But they will surprise readers from societies with more transparent social structures and Canadian scholars from labour relations and labour history backgrounds where case studies are more common.

The first chapter following the introduction is co-authored with D'Arcy Martin; it explores the problematic nature of work-based research undertaken with and for working people. This provides a useful guide for student researchers but could have been strengthened by reference to other adult education (and labour relations) research undertaken with working-class adults rather than a misleading aside (31–2) on adult educators researching university students. The second chapter reviews adult learning theories and provides a justification for the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) approach adopted. No surprises here for readers of Labour/Le Travail except perhaps that more acknowledgment wasn't given to the role of labour historians and British cultural studies in developing these approaches.

The first case study of the auto industry (GM site in Oshawa), co-authored with Ruben Roth, is a corker. It gives a good feel as to what is happening in the plant and why. It describes the impact of union education programs (particularly CAW's paid educational leave [PEL] program). These can be considered as modern-day equivalents of traditional adult education (non-formal), and informal learning that occurs at work, in the union, and socially. The authors identify the role of PEL as critical to the continuance of collective education and worker solidarity.

The second case study looks at the chemical industry and discusses the role of formal schooling, company training, and the workers' own ways of learning to manage the plant. It reviews the tensions between knowing and being credited and paid for it. The struggles over control of on-the-job training and rewards flowing from it highlight an important and overlooked aspect of the "learning organization." The next case study of the community college introduces dimensions of race and gender into the restructuring of public service and learning rhetoric. It also notes that training/education opportunities go to those who have most. These divisive themes are revisited in a different context, small parts manufacture, in the following case study.

The final case study, co-authored with Clara Morgan, of garment workers is the most painful to read. It discusses the position of immigrant (mainly women) workers, the need for ESL and ABE, and the vanishing jobs and dreams of secure employment of these marginalized workers. The unions' attempts to stem the tide and prepare their members are documented and the workers' own knowledge and resilience is acknowledged. Concluding paragraphs beginning "CHAT can help to make visible ..." and "from a CHAT perspective ..." seemed forced; having read the chapter, the observations are clear and obvious, CHAT or no CHAT. This chapter should be compulsory reading for all management gurus extolling the virtues of the new "knowledge economy."

The first concluding chapter, "Household and Community-based Learning: Learning Cultures and Class Differences Beyond Paid Work," is a useful discussion of the work/home/community dimension and may remind older readers of Richard Hoggart's "The Uses of Literacy." The final chapter draws together observations from the case studies about schooling, training, and learning and also looks at gender, race, and age dimensions of working-class learning. A final section compares the study's findings with comparable studies and makes a number of recommendations.

The comparison with the Leeds University research team's study of workplace learning led by Keith Forrester does demonstrate Livingstone and Sawchuk have but a limited conception of the way progressive Employee Development Schemes (EDS) have evolved in the UK. The argument for progressive EDS is an argument for funding and in some cases paid time off for workers to undertake adult education courses of their own choosing. Examples include the union-negotiated Ford Employee Development Assistance Program (EDAP) and UNISON's (Britain's largest public sector union) return-to-learn courses and open-college concept. While CAW/CUPW PEL is superior to EDAP in terms of union control and "oppositional" potential, the extent of EDS at the time (perhaps covering 20 per cent of the workforce) Forrester and colleagues were writing and the opportunity for public policy support help explain their enthusiasm. Forrester's subsequent conclusions presented at a conference in 1999, which both Livingstone and Sawchuk attended, spoke to earlier shortcomings in the Leeds research, and in the opinion of this reviewer, should have been acknowledged in a book appearing some four years later.

The authors' discussion of their recommendations becomes a little confusing because the CAW/CUPW version of PEL is very different from what is generally understood as PEL and it is not clear to what the authors are referring. Similarly, prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) is problematic and needs to be teased out. PLAR may help workers advance at work and gain advanced standing in further and higher education programs; EDS may provide the "general educational tuition support" (291) to allow workers the opportunity to study outside of the workplace; and PEL rights may give them the time off needed for sustained study. However, the CAW/CUPW PEL and other union education programs can support union activism and resistance at work and in society and can, as suggested by the authors, meld with informal learner networks at work, in the union, community, and at home to bolster worker opposition to global capitalism. The different impacts of the various recommendations need to be sorted more clearly. The major struggles around work and learning will continue at work.

This book is a valuable addition to any graduate course reading list examining work and learning. The case studies provide current insights into the world of workplace learning defined from a worker perspective. The commentary could have been more carefully contextualized in places and the book's title may lead the reader to expect more than there is about the future of organized labour in the information age. This is the third book on work and learning to appear in 2004 with Peter Sawchuk's name on the cover, an encouraging sign that the future of the study of adult education is in good hands.


Bruce Spencer Athabasca University

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