Trade union learning strategies and migrant workers: policies and practice in a new-liberal environment

Abstract

This paper examines trade union networking and community-oriented activity through the recent development of learning strategies in relation to migrant workers. The paper locates the discussion on learning in relation to union attempts to develop a broader urban and community-based view of the union as an organisation. It assesses the innovative ways trade unions deploy their learning strategies given the challenges associated with a liberal market economy, in particular, in relation to poor levels of co-ordination amongst key social organisations and low levels of state commitment to the area of training. The paper draws on five empirical case studies of such innovative union approaches and concludes that many of these learning initiatives represent a significant intervention by unions in local urban and community-based contexts. However, it also notes that these appear to be disconnected from stable and consistent forms of local community-based organisation and, in part, remain enveloped in a marketised project-based approach which is piecemeal and in many aspects financially dependent on the state.