Education for worker empowerment : a Maltese case study

Abstract

Workers’ education and training are two important sections in workers’ organisations throughout the world. By educating and training workers, members of trade unions can be more aware of their rights, their privileges and their duties in order to work in a peaceful ambience and be entitled to career progression and critical engagement with the work context. My dissertation will focus on answering the question, “What forms of worker empowerment derive from a specific worker’s education programme in Malta? Thus, my dissertation will be in the area of worker’s education and more specifically within a Trade Union setting in Malta: The Reggie Miller Foundation at Malta’s General Workers’ Union (GWU). My dissertation will have an empirical element of a qualitative nature where I will focus on interviews. I shall be interviewing one (1) director, three (3) educators from the Reggie Miller Foundation, and four (4) course participants. My dissertation will also involve perusal of documents connected with the Reggie Miller Foundation, and also some engagement with key icons in workers’ education, such as Raymond Williams, Antonio Gramsci and Jane L. Thompson. By analysing the works of these key icons in workers’ education, I will try to compare and contrast what they have said about workers’ education with the course offered by Reggie Miller Foundation from the perspective of the workers’ themselves.