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BULLETIN 148
Workers and vocational training

January-April 2000

(Full text available only in Spanish)

 

THIS ISSUE

Cinterfor/ILO Boletín N° 148 is devoted to the new links that have emerged - or are bound to emerge – between the trade-union movement, historical representative of the aspirations of workers, and vocational training. In recent years the latter has undergone a veritable transformation, as a result of the need to adapt to the political, economic and technological changes having taken place at the end of the millennium.

On the other hand, the trade-union movement – beleaguered by the dismantling of traditional industries and unemployment – is rather late in resorting to vocational training elevated to the rank of central bargaining point, on a par with what were the "historic" interests of trade-unionism in the region: the struggle for wages, the defence of work posts and social justice. This comparative delay can perhaps be attributed to the fact that instead of constituting a "cause" comparable to other vindications of the workers’ movement, vocational training pervades them all, appearing to be both vague and omnipresent. It is therefore necessary to begin systematising the challenges that that problem poses for the trade-union movement, as well as trade-union thinking on the matter in recent times.

This issue of the Cinterfor/ILO Boletín starts with a paper by Marcos Supervielle that analyses the way in which the shift from a technocentric view of progress to an anthropocentric one, stressing the role of workers in productive processes, has led workers and their representative organisations (trade unions) to ascribe a new value to vocational training.

A document prepared by Fernando Casanova and Gonzalo Graña describes the current situation regarding participation by trade-union movements in the institutional arrangements of vocational training in the region as a result of a present-day paradox: the declining share of the State in national training organisations has caused other participating agents (trade unions and employers) quite naturally to move in, so that the former have regained the ground they had been losing.

Oscar Valverde, starting from a historical review of guilds and trades in the Lower Middle Ages moves over to present times, wherein the different training systems have to be brought together. He feels that such integration has to be co-managed by the trade-union movement, as the only possible guarantee of greater equity and social justice.

Zeroing in on this objective, Carlos Rodríguez examines the links between vocational training and basic education. No satisfactory vocational training can exist unless the imperfect structures of basic education in the region are mended. In this case again, vocational training transcends a number of barriers, and its reformulation forces us to "rethink" the world.

Hugo Barreto Ghione finds in training a new horizon for trade-union action. He considers that the coming together of training and labour bargaining has not happened by accident. Rather, it is part of an agenda to govern change and revitalise the tripartite approach (the State-employers-workers) as absolutely essential to reach that objective.

The second part of this Boletín is based on reflections issuing from the trade-union movement itself. It includes analytical documents from the trade-union organisations of a number of countries of Iberian America. However different the national realities of each one of them, they share a common diagnosis: it is absolutely necessary for the trade-union movement to get trained and to take part in the reformulation of vocational training policies, in the face of fallacies such as the dictum that privatisation means efficiency, and in defence of public spaces endangered by neo-liberal and ultra-liberal economic policies in the region.

The initial article in this chapter presents both the conceptual ideas and action concerning vocational training of the Trade-union Forum for the Overall Training of Workers – a collegiate body of the General Workers’ Federation (CGT) of Argentina. It underlines that participation by organised workers’ movements is an essential requirement to legitimise any political social or economic project. Based on this premise, the Forum develops its views on the many aspects of labour relations in general, and vocational training systems in particular.

In Brazil, where a great deal of the training offer is in private hands, documents by the union organisations CUT and Força Sindical point to the need that the trade-union movement should regain leadership in that field, developing new models of decentralised tripartite arrangements, at state and municipal level, reflecting the local individualities of the populations concerned.

The workers’ organisations of Colombia (CGDT, CTC, CUT, SINDESENA) proclaim their defence of the National Training Service (SENA) and maintain that it should be reformed rather than abolished. Such is the sense of papers presented by Wilson Arias Carrillo, Luis Eduado Garzón, Roberto Gómez Esquerra and Luis Miguel Morantes.

The document drafted by Alberto Jménez of the CTRP of Panama dwells on the purposes and objectives of education, and is in favour of an all-inclusive education, for the overall instruction of individuals and citizens, in co-ordination with the requirements of productive work and social obligations.

The document submitted by the trade-union delegation of Uruguay, PIT-CNT to the Uruguayan National Employment Board (JUNAE), lays stress on the fact that the knowledge held by workers is a productive capital that has been undermined by the other social actors. It points out that smart enterprises cannot exist without ascribing their proper value to all parties concerned. Participation by all actors is the only way to prevent situations that would otherwise lead to conflict.

The contribution of the Spanish trade-union organisations CC.OO and UGT is contained in a document with their proposals to the Action Plan for Employment of the Year 2000. The paper embodies the ideas of Spanish trade unionism on the components and aims that an employment plan requires to be effective and efficient in the struggle against unemployment and to make way in the attainment of social justice.

Perhaps the most important common denominator of all these documents is the semantic revolution with which workers upturn the concepts issuing from economic and political theories: adaptability, employability, occupational competence, flexibility, etc. They transform them into veritable critical "boomerangs" of those very same theories, and send them back loaded with the human and civic values and the solidarity they have invested them with.

This "semantic revolution" is an indication that the trade-union movement of the region is beginning to experience a new "cosmic view" vis-à-vis the world of labour of the coming century and intends to play a role in it that it had been neglecting, perhaps through lack of focus.

Social dialogue in general, and on vocational training in particular, is a practice that has repeatedly proved to be effective in obtaining satisfactory results – or at least acceptable to the social actors involved. A paradigm of social dialogue in training is the Spanish system of continuous training managed by the FORCEM Foundation, a bipartite body. The articles included in the third chapter of this Boletín bear witness to the importance ascribed by Cinterfor/ILO to social dialogue on training. They also reflect the views on vocational training of actors on the labour scene other than trade unions.

Javier Ferrer Dufol recounts the results obtained in Spain through the collaboration of the social actors in the field of vocational training and underlines the importance of social dialogue in meeting the challenge of creating employment.

Claudio de Moura Castro analyses the effects of business management on vocational training in Brazil, through what is known as the "S System". After describing how the training organisations making up that system came about, he considers what management implies in terms of adapting training to the needs of firms and enterprises. The financing of training is also an important element in Moura Castro’s article.

This special number closes with two contributions by the International Labour Organisation – ILO. The first one is a transcript of the resolution adopted by the 88^th ILO International Labour Conference (Geneva, June 2000) on the Development of Human Resources. It revalues the concept of man as an essential resource for development, and makes an appeal so that all men without exception may have access to the basic and technical-vocational training necessary to get a decent job. It underlines that education and training by themselves will not solve the problem of employment, unless they are co-ordinated with economic policies also promoting man’s full development, specially targeting those sectors of the world population that have been left out by economic growth.

The second one is the address by the ILO Director General in Rome, on 1^st May 2000, in the presence of Pope John Paul II, during the celebration of the Workers’ Jubilee. On that occasion Sr. Juan Somavía urged the representatives of workers and employers to come together in a "global coalition" for decent work, and made a "lay" plea for a review of the rules governing world economy, to infuse them with the ethical substance they now lack.

 

 

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