DURING THE PAST FEW DECADES, A NUMBER OF UNIONS HAVE HELPED MEMBERS TO RETRAIN TO COPE WITH TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE OR TO UPGRADE TRADE OR CRAFT SKILLS, AND SOME UNIONS HAVE PARTICIPATED WITH EMPLOYERS IN JOINT APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS AND SIMILAR EFFORTS. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING PROVISIONS FOR RETRAINING HAVE BEEN DESIGNED TO KEEP AS MANY WORKERS AS…

Current types of industry-sponsored educational programs, training facilities, and teaching and evaluation methods are described. The history of education and training within the corporate world and the roles of government and unions are traced. Factors that have limited college and industrial cooperation in employee education are also identified.…

An evaluation of this Syracuse, New York workplace literacy skills improvement project had three purposes: to characterize changes in the baseline performance of adults' workplace literacy skills as a function of instructional treatment; to characterize changes in workers' and supervisors' perceptions of worker effectiveness as a function of…

The Columbia-Willamette Skill Builders Consortium was formed in early 1988 in response to a growing awareness of the need for improved workplace literacy training and coordinated service delivery in Northwest Oregon. In June 1990, the consortium received a National Workplace Literacy Program grant to develop and demonstrate such training. The…

A workplace literacy demonstration project was implemented through a partnership among the Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Institute for Adult Learning and Literacy, and the United Auto Workers/General Motors (UAW/GM) Human Resource Center. Competency-based, job-related foundation skills training was provided for 400 employees, and…

The report describes the design and outcomes of a workplace education program undertaken cooperatively by Northeastern Illinois University, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union, and a number of local businesses to provide adult basic education, English-as-a-Second-Language, and job skills instruction in the workplace. The report…

A workplace literacy partnership program model was demonstrated at four Chrysler plants in Indiana. Objectives were to improve workers' individual skills, enhance personal productivity, and increase work force job security and plant competitiveness. During the 3-month start-up phase, project staff worked with management and labor representatives…

The Ohio State University, Inland Fisher Guide Division of General Motors, and United Auto Workers Local 969 formed a collaborative partnership in 1990 to train employees whose inadequate literacy skills made them unable to respond to the requirements of "synchronous manufacturing" (or "just in time" production). One of the…

This book documents the range of training programs that are being established by employers and unions; assesses porgram functioning and results; and offers insights for practitioners, scholars, and policy makers. An introduction (Ferman et al.) provides a general framework for thinking about union-management training programs and presents an…

Projects funded during the first year of operation of the National Workplace Literacy Program were examined. Activities included a review of research literature, analyses of data from 29 of the 37 first-year projects, and site visits to 6 projects. The research literature suggested the following elements of successful workplace literacy programs:…

A study investigated instructional administrative practices in workplace English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs and lessons learned in their implementation, with special attention given to innovative practice and its context. Data were drawn from a survey of 22 workplace literacy programs with culturally diverse populations in a variety of…