Labour movement views of post school education, training reform and economic restructuring in Australia between 1982 and 1995
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2003
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In the 1980s and 1990s Australia trade unions, via their Accord with the Australian
Labor Party (ALP), set out to reform vocational education and training and connect it to
the centralised industrial relations system.
Trade unions saw a need to consolidate their position within a changing Australian and
international economic context. Education and training policy was influenced by
intellectual trends within economics, industrial relations and management. Its
educational objective centred on raising the skill level of the Australian workforce.
The primary data for this research was collected by interviewing a group of key labour
movement figures, and workers in two factories. The thesis analyses the motivations
and expectations these figures held for training reform, and assesses whether and to
what extent those expectations were realised. Unionists at two factories - a clothing
factory and a steel factory - were also asked to reflect on their experience of training
reform and restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s
The analysis draws on these interviews and an extensive range of 'official' union
records, journals and newspapers, scholarly articles and other research. It constructs a
views of the union experience of promoting reform in general and training reform in
particular as a means of modernising the Australian economy and improving the
position and conditions of unionists.
The analysis suggests that reliance by union leaders on extensive policy negotiations
with a Labor government would diminish the need for unions to directly confront
conflict of interests between workers and employers was misguided. The experience
suggests that policy developed in a closed circle and resistant to questioning from the
rank and file will not be able to galvanise committed support on a wide scale. While
formal agreement within the labour movement was achieved commitment was not
nearly so strong.
Overall the expectations of the labour movement leaders were not met. Parties to the
Accord could place their own interpretation on training reform, which contained many
ambiguities. When the employers sought different results from the unions, the unions
were in too weak a position to insist on their own interpretation. Training reform did
not generally improve workers' earnings, job security or satisfaction. It did not deliver
effective recognition of prior learning and created a level of complexity that alienated
many union officers and delegates. The price for misplaced reliance in rank and file workers'
trust in their unions.
These outcomes undermined solidarity and gradually contributed to the movement's
weakness. They serve as a lesson for the future strategies.
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