The Labor Education and Research Network (LEARN) is an non-government organization (NGO) in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 that provides various services primarily to workers, both from the private and public sectors or formal and informal labor. Its core programs are education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 (trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

, political and other popular or "liberative" education), research, publications, women or gender, solidarity and networking

Social network

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

.

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

Dictatorship

A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...

. Its founders were leaders of different trade unions outside the then mainstream

Mainstream

Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....

 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

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

-led globalization

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

 - aptly called corporate or neoliberal globalization - the scope and methods of oppression and exploitation have further been intensified. Its main economic programs - liberalization

Liberalization

In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...

, deregulation

Deregulation

Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...

 and privatization

Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...

 - 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 supports global efforts to strengthen the diverse social movements or civil society

Civil society

Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...

 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.