Learning on the line: Voices of garment workers at Great Western Garment

Abstract

Abstract: This presentation focuses upon a dramatic script created from a study of garment workers employed long-term at the Alberta-based garment manufacturing plant GWG/Levi. The study explored work-life and learning at work as narrated by these workers, many of whom had lived through plant changes over a period of 15 to 35 years. The workers’ recollections reveal powerful stories of resilience and individual ingenuity developed amidst numbing work conditions, as well as spaces of social learning that for some, appeared to nurture strength and self-worth. The drama, which was performed for academic and practitioner audiences, is reproduced here in full. The following pages provide background for the drama: the perspectives informing the project and its analysis, the study methods, the interpretations and themes from which the drama was conceived, and the process of constructing the drama.