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Who we are
The Labor Education and Research Network (LEARN) is an NGO or non-government
organization in the Philippines that provides various services primarily
to
workers, both from the private and public sectors or formal and
informal
labor. Its core programs are education (trade union, political and
other
popular or "liberative" education), research, publications,
women or gender,
solidarity and networking.
Brief History
LEARN was established in October 1986 or about eight months after
the
historic and world renowned Edsa People Power "Revolution"
or Edsa 1, which
ousted the 20-year Marcos dictatorship. Its founders were leaders
of
different trade unions outside the then mainstream labor organizations
and
major political or ideological blocs. They called for genuine workers'
empowerment by developing an alternative workers' education that
blends the
economic, political and sociocultural struggles of the workers;
propagates
an alternative socialist system; and is guided by the basic principles
of
trade union solidarity, democracy, self-reliance and autonomy.
LEARN stresses the principal role of workers' education to raise
workers'
consciousness of their conditions, rights and capabilities to change
that
condition. LEARN affirms that labor education is an integral component
of
strengthening workers solidarity in trade unions, civil society
groups and
with other social movements. LEARN upholds the belief that labor
organizing
and education are inseparable and must continuously be developed,
especially
in the light of the new arena of struggle confronting the workers
and other
basic sectors throughout the world. In the current capitalist-led
globalization - aptly called corporate or neoliberal globalization
- the
scope and methods of oppression and exploitation have further been
intensified. Its main economic programs - liberalization, deregulation
and
privatization - are sweepingly imposed worldwide. Supporting economic
liberalization in the labor front are the systematic corporate
"productivity" and labor "flexibility" measures
that create a vast army of
contractual and non-regular or informal workers, who are much "cheaper,"
more "docile" and banned from joining unions.
LEARN fully supports the global efforts to strengthen the diverse
social
movements or civil society organizations - NGOs and POs (people's
organizations) - particularly the broad labor movement including
the new
forms of workers' organizations encompassing the formal and informal
sectors
as well as new strategies of actions to attain a socially just,
equitable,
democratic, and peaceful world. |
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