Why workers are reluctant learners: the case of the Canadian pulp and paper industry
Abstract
Explores worker flexibility, through learning, union strategies, and resistance to learning. Issues of flexibility, learning, and quality are subject of much debate, negotiation, and conflict in the Canadian pulp and paper industry. A key bargaining issue for management has been to harness flexibility among the manual craft workers, to improve labour productivity. Within this context, workplace learning is not neutral or independent of day‐to‐day union‐management relations: it is a contested issue. Learning new skills is viewed as a threat to job control and security and presents a paradox: learning new trade skills enhances individual workers’ flexibility and employability but collectively weakens the union through job losses. Data were collected from pulp mills in British Columbia between 1996 and 1999. Survey and qualitative data provides evidence that workers’ resistance to learning is part of the contested arena of productivity and job control.
Keywords
Citation
Bratton, J.A. (2001), "Why workers are reluctant learners: the case of the Canadian pulp and paper industry", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 13 No. 7/8, pp. 333-344. https://doi.org/10.1108/13665620110411120
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited