Page 62 - Learning-while-working-Success-stories-on-workplace-learning-in-Europe

Learning while working
56 Success stories on workplace learning in Europe

shortages and training needs at company and sectoral level, and helping
workers develop transferable skills to increase employability or readiness
to progress or change position within their current employment. Unions are
also developing guidance and learning services to assist their members
to deal with sectoral and organisational change, anticipate redundancy or
plan for retirement.
The scope, extent and forms of collective bargaining for lifelong learning
within enterprises are affected by national industrial relations settings, in
particular, the centrality of lifelong learning in both social dialogue and
the trade union bargaining agenda and social partner involvement in the
design of occupation standards, qualifications and training systems and
programmes. Factors that determine the scope and outcomes of social
dialogue in relation to providing workers with learning opportunities include
the number of SMEs and non-unionised workplaces in a sector, training
incentives available for employers and employees, and how the interlinking
between skill development, productivity, adaptation to sectoral change and
innovation is perceived (Cedefop, 2008a, p. 45-49).
The chapter briefly addresses the incidence of collective bargaining
in employer training provision and discusses commendable examples of
practice in which trade unions and employers develop lifelong learning
strategies in the workplace.

4.2. Widening access to learning through
collective bargaining

Skills development is an important commodity for collective bargaining, as
discussed in a joint publication by Cedefop and Eurofound on the contributions
of social dialogue to lifelong learning (Eurofound and Cedefop, 2009). Collective
agreements may bring substantial developments in national and sectoral
lifelong learning agendas, expanding learning opportunities to collectives of
employees that tend typically to be excluded from training and education,
either because fewer opportunities are available to them or because they are
less inclined to take on learning; examples are given below.