When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

The National Education Association (NEA), the United States' largest labor union representing close to 3 million educators, implemented a $3 per member dues increase in 2013 to create the Great Public Schools (GPS) Fund grant program to support innovative change efforts within its affiliates. In the first five years of the program, $32.3 million…

In recent years policymakers have seized on teacher evaluation as a primary lever for improving schools. Of all school factors--from expanded school calendars to smaller class sizes to community and family engagement programs--teachers contribute the most to student achievement. Policymakers reason that evaluating teachers based on their students'…

Communities across the country are grappling with different approaches to improving their schools. Introducing or expanding charter schools is one of the approaches that states and school districts have considered or implemented. Charter schools serve more than 5 percent of public school students nationwide and make up close to 7 percent of all…

Discusses the usefulness and importance of international labor standards for workers; workers' participation in the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) standard-setting activities and in the implementation of international labor standards; and the ILO's procedures of supervision. (CT)

Labor unions hold a somewhat different view of "workplace literacy" efforts than company management often does. Unions believe that workplace literacy programs should be voluntary and involve more that just "work" skills. As in union education of the past, union programs focus on education of the whole worker for life, not just for work. Unions…

Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), a program in which Consulting Teachers (CTs) provide support for and then evaluate their peers, requires a unique labor-management collaboration because it brings together members of the teachers union and administration to focus on improving teacher quality. PAR requires that CTs and principals share evaluation…

This handbook provides specific examples of activities and procedures of labor-education collaboration within the context of the career education program. It is intended to help interested communities develop or expand labor's active involvement in the educational process. After an introduction, a section lists a number of concerns shared by…

A study examined the impact that the United Auto Workers' (UAW) Joint Funds programs, established in the early 1980s, have had upon the policies and practices of selected community colleges in the Midwest. Each of the three UAW Joint Funds programs (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) offers a wide array of special programs to active and inactive…

This handbook was developed to assist local education agency personnel in establishing and administering high school apprenticeship programs, especially in North Carolina. The guide is organized in seven chapters that cover the following topics: (1) what apprenticeship is; (2) how a registered apprenticeship program works; (3) why employers choose…

AFL-CIO unions representing a wide range of workers in virtually every sector of the economy have teamed with employers to develop and sustain successful programs resulting in better trained, more productive workers. Joint training and education programs come in various forms and offer a wide range of services depending on the industry and worker…

This report includes two sections: (1) an overview of the issues involved in joint labor/management workplace education programs and (2) a description of such a program partnering two union locals, nine hospitals, and Bunker Hill Community College to implement a workplace-based career ladder program. The first section explains that unions and…

This book contains 12 chapters, each of which is a case study or a commentary on the unemployment of the 1980s and early 1990s and on the programs devised to retrain workers. Titles and authors are as follows: "Understanding Unemployment: A Critical Overview of Labour Market Trends, Employment, and Unemployment: (John Hughes); "A…

Although conventional collective bargaining has helped teachers achieve greater professional status, its win/lose approach causes participants to overlook shared educational objectives. Since the first experiments in win/win bargaining, the acrimony generated by the adversarial process has led an increasing number of school districts to…

This report summarizes the experiences of the Massachusetts Quality of Working Life Center in assisting the attempted and actual start-up of a number of quality of work life (QWL) programs in 1976 and 1977 and in providing ongoing assistance. Lessons learned by the three sites the center launched, other sites, as well as those sites that chose not…