ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the existing relationship between vocational education and labor, while speculating on what this relationship could be in a democratic society, in a critical pedagogy of vocational education. New labor leaders and a changing workforce are calling for a more critical form of unionism that comprehends the power of corporations. A critical unionism joins with a critical pedagogy of vocational education to address this situation. Work problems in general and work problems specifically in the globalized post-Fordist economy at the end of the twentieth century require more than individual workers struggling alone. Organized labor is direly needed in an era when corporate and governmental leaders fail to think in terms of the relation of economic policies to the needs of human beings. A democratic union movement is especially important in light of these corporate attitudes and actions.
