428 Roxton Road
Toronto, Ontario
M6G 3R4 Canada
e-mail: bthom@web.net
Page 2 - Formal Education
Page 3 - Examples of Work with Unions
Page 4 - Work with Schools, Government, Community, International
Page 5 - Speaking Engagements, Writing and Publications
Page 6 - Employment Experience
SUMMARY
Barb Thomas is a labour and community educator, writer, facilitator, experienced in anti-racism/equity education, and in promoting democratic organizational change processes. She has worked with the labour movement for 22 years in a variety of capacities, as well as with many other non-profit organization (women's organisations, community groups, school boards, human service organizations, arts organizations, government) in Canada and internationally over the past twenty-five years.
She has continued her work with a variety of unions to facilitated strategic planning processes, develop and pilot new courses, develop member educators, and strengthen educational capacity in Canadian unions. She shared the job of Canadian educator director for SEIU with D'Arcy Martin, until they both resigned after a raid in April 2000.
Between September 2001 to July 2002, she lived in Montréal to learn French. As part of her apprenticeship in French and Québec union culture, she was sent as a representative of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers/Syndicat de travaillers et travailleuses des Postes (STTP) to participate in the FTQ's union leadership program - the 9-week, intensive Collège FTQ-Fonds.
She has just finished co-authoring a book on union education - Education for Changing Unions - with D'Arcy Martin, Jojo Geronimo (OPSEU), Carol Wall (CEP) and Bev Burke, which will be published December 2002.
From 1974 to 1983 Barb worked as a program and community developer at the Cross Cultural Communications Centre. It was there, in 1980 that she began her involvement with the labour movement in developing the first course for the Metro Labour Education Centre on "Combating racism in the Workplace,": and in assisting the Ontario Federation of Labour with their program "Racism Hurts Everyone." From that and other experience, she co-authored the book, Combating Racism in the Workplace: A Course for Workers, published by the Cross Cultural Communication Centre.
For eight years, from 1978-1986, she volunteered as a community delegate on the Labour Studies Committee of the Toronto Board of Education, along with representatives from the Ontario Federation of Labour, the CLC, and the Metro Labour Education Centre. There she helped develop labour positive materials for children from grades 1-13, including a slide-tape show introducing grade 4 children to unions. She co-authored with Fran Endicott, a book for grade 6 children, The City Kids' Book, which showed teachers how to work with important themes in children's lives - family, work, discrimination, and migration.
She has worked internationally in the Caribbean, Southern Africa, the United States and Malaysia. She lived in Barbados for two years teaching secondary school. She was working in Grenada in 1983, during the brief period of transformation between 1979 -1983. Following the American invasion, she went on a cross-Canada speaking tour supported by CUSO, to provide alternative information about the people's revolution in Grenada and the reasons for and impact of the invasion. In 1989 and 1990 she went on 3 occasions to Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa to work with the ANC, then in exile, to provide training in popular education. And in 1992 she and D'Arcy Martin were invited by Malaysian trade unionists to offer a course in "Facing Management." In the United States, she has done anti-racism and popular education training with SEIU, AFSCME, and the Labour Studies Centre at UCLA.
She was a co-founder of the Doris Marshall Institute for Education and Action, an organization of activist-educators who provided process support to the social movements. And she co-authored Educating for a Change, along with D'Arcy Martin and 3 other colleagues from the Doris Marshall Institute.
Barb Thomas is a labour and community educator, writer, facilitator, experienced in anti-racism/equity education, and in promoting democratic organizational change processes. She has worked with the labour movement for 22 years in a variety of capacities, as well as with many other non-profit organization (women's organisations, community groups, school boards, human service organizations, arts organizations, government) in Canada and internationally over the past twenty-five years.
She has continued her work with a variety of unions to facilitated strategic planning processes, develop and pilot new courses, develop member educators, and strengthen educational capacity in Canadian unions. She shared the job of Canadian educator director for SEIU with D'Arcy Martin, until they both resigned after a raid in April 2000.
Between September 2001 to July 2002, she lived in Montréal to learn French. As part of her apprenticeship in French and Québec union culture, she was sent as a representative of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers/Syndicat de travaillers et travailleuses des Postes (STTP) to participate in the FTQ's union leadership program - the 9-week, intensive Collège FTQ-Fonds.
She has just finished co-authoring a book on union education - Education for Changing Unions - with D'Arcy Martin, Jojo Geronimo (OPSEU), Carol Wall (CEP) and Bev Burke, which will be published December 2002.
From 1974 to 1983 Barb worked as a program and community developer at the Cross Cultural Communications Centre. It was there, in 1980 that she began her involvement with the labour movement in developing the first course for the Metro Labour Education Centre on "Combating racism in the Workplace,": and in assisting the Ontario Federation of Labour with their program "Racism Hurts Everyone." From that and other experience, she co-authored the book, Combating Racism in the Workplace: A Course for Workers, published by the Cross Cultural Communication Centre.
For eight years, from 1978-1986, she volunteered as a community delegate on the Labour Studies Committee of the Toronto Board of Education, along with representatives from the Ontario Federation of Labour, the CLC, and the Metro Labour Education Centre. There she helped develop labour positive materials for children from grades 1-13, including a slide-tape show introducing grade 4 children to unions. She co-authored with Fran Endicott, a book for grade 6 children, The City Kids' Book, which showed teachers how to work with important themes in children's lives - family, work, discrimination, and migration.
She has worked internationally in the Caribbean, Southern Africa, the United States and Malaysia. She lived in Barbados for two years teaching secondary school. She was working in Grenada in 1983, during the brief period of transformation between 1979 -1983. Following the American invasion, she went on a cross-Canada speaking tour supported by CUSO, to provide alternative information about the people's revolution in Grenada and the reasons for and impact of the invasion. In 1989 and 1990 she went on 3 occasions to Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa to work with the ANC, then in exile, to provide training in popular education. And in 1992 she and D'Arcy Martin were invited by Malaysian trade unionists to offer a course in "Facing Management." In the United States, she has done anti-racism and popular education training with SEIU, AFSCME, and the Labour Studies Centre at UCLA.
She was a co-founder of the Doris Marshall Institute for Education and Action, an organization of activist-educators who provided process support to the social movements. And she co-authored Educating for a Change, along with D'Arcy Martin and 3 other colleagues from the Doris Marshall Institute.
