Labor/Management Workplace Education Program
UMass Amherst

Innovative Programming:

• LMWEP has developed a nationally-recognized empowerment approach to worker education (Next Steps) focusing on skills for advancement and retention, for improved organizational effectiveness, and for portability across jobs and industries
• LMWEP has developed tailored work-centered curricula, geared to:
• Frontline workers (from clerical and office support employees to janitors, food service workers, trade workers, technicians, and grounds workers)
• Frontline supervisors and aspiring supervisors
• Women in the Frontline Workforce
• Immigrant workers
• Older workers
• At risk youth
• Educational Support Professionals
• LMWEP has developed the largest array of worker education offerings in New England, including the following:
• Workplace ESOL
• Workplace Literacy
• GED
• Leadership Skills (beginning and intermediate)
• Pre-supervisory and Supervisory Skills Development
• Workplace Communication Skills
• Conflict and Stress Skills
• Economic Survival Skills
• Advanced Writing
• Stories form the Field (workers documenting their work experiences)
• Problem-solving at the Workplace
• Workplace Readiness
• Workplace Diversity Skills
• “Fireside Chats” (a workers’ learning circle where legislators, university administrators, union leaders, community dialogue together with frontline workers)
• UpFront Worker Radio: an award-winning radio program on issues of social justice and diversity from a worker’s perspective
• Workplace Computers Skills (beginning, intermediate, and advanced classes in general computer skills, WORD, EXCEL, ACCESS, Powerpoint, Graphics, and Web-design)
• Classism Issues and Workplace Bullying
• LMWEP has sponsored  numerous public readings by workers reading their writings produced in LMWEP publications
• LMWEP has sponsored a worker-developed video on workplace diversity (aired at an International Conference on Education)
• LMWEP has co-sponsored with AFSCME and USA/MTA a series of exhibitions of worker art on campus
• LMWEP launched a campus mentoring project to showcase positive mentoring relations between frontline staff and campus students
• With UMASS Community Service Learning, LMWEP involves community service learners from Commonwealth College in the worker education classroom
• LMWEP helped launch the Labor/ Management Wellness Program for Housing Services at the University

Funding:

• LMWEP has been awarded more than 100 worker education grants from a variety of local, state, federal, and private funding sources. 
• LMWEP has helped secure $6 million in worker education funding for our region, including $600,000 for regional career ladders.  Recent worker education awards include funding for a national worker writers project (pending), a national pilot for educational support services, worker education services for a joint program in southern Hampden county, an older workers project to benefit multiple employers and unions in both Hampshire and Hamden county, a joint worker education project in northern Hampden county, a rural-based worker/adult education project serving the seven  southern hilltowns, and a major career ladders development and worker education project for employees at multiple work sites in Franklin and Hampshire county.  Several of these projects have been launched in collaboration with the Franklin/Hampshire Regional Employment Board.   And one of these involved Greenfield Community College as a major partner.

Regional Resource Services:

• LMWEP has helped launch more than 30 worker education sites in our region, including…
• Adult Basic Education Services for the Towns of Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Middlefield, Montgomery,  Russell, and Worthington
• A Workforce Needs Analysis for US Tsubaki and the Steelworkers Union in Chicopee
• A Workforce Needs Analysis for the Springfield Cafeteria Workers Union and the City of Springfield Public Schools
• An Array of Career-related courses for Sodexho and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union
• Workplace ESOL Services at Hasbro in East Longmeadow
• An array of offerings for displaced AMES workers with UNITE, the Pioneer Valley Labor Council, and the Mass AFL-CIO
• Workplace ESOL and Workplace Spanish for Northampton State Hospital and AFSCME
• Workplace ESOL Services for Sisters of Providence and SEIU 285
• Workplace ESOL for Ames Distribution Center and UNITE
• Workplace ESOL at Tubed Products in Easthampton
• Project coordination (reporting to the Franklin/Hampshire Regional Employment Board, and in partnership with Greenfield Community College) of an array of Next Steps, Workplace ESOL, and upper-level job computer offerings to Kennemetal Consumer Products, Kennemetal Industrial Products Group, Lamson & Goodnow, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, UAW 223, SEIU Locals 211 and 263, and the United Electrical Workers
• Next Steps Services for Five College Inc (participants from Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Hampshire College)
• Next Steps Services for Northfield Mount-Hermon School in Northfield
• Next Steps Services for Greenfield Community College employees
• Next Step and Career Services at Smith College
• Next Steps Services at Mount Holyoke College
• Older Worker Services for Smith College
• Older Worker Services for Smith Vocational School, Northampton
• Older Worker Services for the City of Northampton Public Schools
• Workplace ESOL Services for the Town of Amherst
• A Joint Career Fair for Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, SEIU, and the UAW
• A full range of offerings for UMass, Amherst employees with AFSCME, USA/MTA, and PSU
• Computer and Basic Skills courses for the Department of Public Works in Northampton
• Workplace ESOL for Smith & Wesson
• Education for Paraprofessionals in the Westfield School system
• Participatory space design and photo documentation of the ADP Worker Center in Springfield
• Participatory space design for the Northampton Community Education Consortium    
• LMWEP has worked in collaboration with more than 50 employer, union, community, and/or regional partners       
• LMWEP is helping to build regional educational ladders for workers
• LMWEP served as the lead agency for the 2007-9 regional Career Ladder and Older Worker Project funded by Commonwealth Corporation
• Under the direction of Northampton Mayor, Claire Higgins, LMWEP is working with some 15 agencies to help launch the Northampton Adult Education Center
• LMWEP helped bring together key University, Greenfield Community College, and Franklin/Hampshire Regional Employment Board people around the development of regional educational ladders for adults

New England and National Efforts:
LMWEP has taken a leadership role by:

• providing teacher training to adult and worker educators from Massachusetts and neighboring New England states
• being a leading national voice for participatory worker education
• home to “Kindred Voices: The National Worker Writers Project”
• launching a national pilot for Educational Support Professionals Education
• consulting on development of adult worker education “The Bridge to Learning and Literacy Program” at Harvard University
• consulting for the Connecticut Nursing Homes Training & Upgrading Fund
• developing innovative approaches on issues of class and classism through worker education