Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

Bosses and Workers’ Differing Perspectives on Economic Issues

• 4 Week course
• February 20 & 27, March 5 & 12
• Wednesday evenings, 6:30 to 9:00 pm
• CAW Hall, 312 12th Street
• New Westminster

Course Outline:

• Day 1 - Labour Markets - Why do most people need jobs, but some don’t?
• Day 2 - Stock Market and Shop Floors - Where does all the wealth come from?
• Day 3 - Budgets, Deficits, and Taxes - Who’s paying all the bills?
• Day 4 - Privatization - Who owns the world?

Courses will include lecture, discussion, with integrated use of media such as music and video to illustrated the prevalence of hidden economic persuasion in everyday life. A strict distinction between the mainstream view of businesses and alternative views will be made in each class in order to understand how economic issues are
shaped by the social position of the people involved.

Underlying Philosophy:

Workers often share a common sense understanding with other ordinary people; they understand the economy as a mysterious world of financial markets, which is inhabited by investment bankers, stockbrokers, and media pundits. If the workers are unionized, labour law, collective bargaining and organizing professionals complement this world of
finance. The contrast between such perceptions and everyday experience of the individual pursuit of jobs and work place conflicts produces widespread feelings of isolation, alienation, and powerlessness that hamper workers’ individual capacities and collective activism.

One factor to overcome such impediments to strong labour movements is to focus labour education on economic issues. This, however, should not counter neo-liberal mainstream views with an alternative variety of expert knowledge. The starting point should be the experiences of individual workers as job seekers instead. Proceeding from there, it should be explained why working people have to sell their labour power to the bosses’, and also why the latter are on top of the hierarchical power relations at the workplace. Only on this basis can management strategies, economic policies and international economic relations be understood as processes that ultimately depend on workers as the producers of wealth. The ultimate goal of this type of worker education is to build capacities in such a way that enables them to get involved in economical and
political self-representation.

Course Instructor: Ingo Schmidt

Ingo Schmidt teaches Labour Relations at Athabasca University and is developing a course on Economics for Workers. He has written books and articles on economic policies. Collaborating with the Working Group for Alternative Economic Policies and major unions, Ingo worked as a labour educator in Germany before he came to Canada.

Course Fees: $25 (subsidies available)

Please register through the Vancouver & District Labour Council, 604-254-0703, or office@vdlc.ca

Presented by the Vancouver & District Labour Council Education Committee