research paper 10 - learning representative initiatives in the uk and new zealand

Research paper 10November 2009

Learning representative initiatives in the UK and New Zealanda comparative study Bill Lee and Catherine Cassell

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the British Academy Grant number LRG-42465 entitled “Investigating the sustainability of the Learning Representative schemes in the UK and New Zealand through a systemic analysis”

The authors would like to thank the interviewees who willingly gave their time to be interviewed for this research.

The research paper is published by unionlearn. It is the TUC organisation that supports union-led strategies for learning and skills opportunities. Unionlearn helps unions open up learning and skills opportunities for their members and develops and delivers trade union education for their representatives and professional officers.

About the authors

Dr Bill Lee is Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Financial Management, Management School, University of Sheffield. Professor Catherine Cassell is Professor of Occupational Psychology, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester.

Contact details

Dr Bill Lee Management School University of Sheffield 9, Mappin Street Sheffield, S1 4DT UK Telephone +44 (0)114 2223432 [email protected]

Professor Catherine Cassell Manchester Business School University of Manchester Booth Street West Manchester, M15 6PB Telephone +44(0)161 3063443 [email protected]

1Learning representative initiatives in the UK and New Zealand: a comparative study

Contents

Foreword 2

Abstract 3

Executive summary 4

Introduction 5

Methodology 9

UK case study: the civil service 10

UK case study: manufacturing 15

New Zealand case study: IDEA Services 20

New Zealand case study: distribution 23

Discussion and conclusions 26

Appendix 27

The main driver of the union learning movement has been the union learning representative (ULR). Over 23,000 ULRs have been trained over the last decade. They have been pivotal in providing information and advice to union learners, brokering provision with providers and running union learning centres. The learning representative concept is now being adopted by unions in other countries. One such country is New Zealand where the learning representative initiative is relatively recent and therefore less developed than that in the UK, but is already having considerable impact.

This research paper, written by highly respected researchers in this policy area, compares and contrasts ULRs in the UK with learning representatives (LRs) in New Zealand through the use of case studies. Even though the size and shape of labour markets in both countries are very different there are common features in the initiatives. In both countries learning reps have been strongly supported by the TUC and the NZCTU and have been recognised by the respective governments within their skills strategies. Furthermore, the representatives in both initiatives are trained and accredited by national qualifications bodies.

A major difference is that, unlike ULRs, LRs in New Zealand have no statutory rights to paid time off to train and carry out their duties. Nevertheless, both roles are recognised in collective employment agreements. LRs also focus their work with industrial training organisations on job-related training, while ULRs support their members over a wider range of learning including personal development.

There is no one model for union-supported learning but the concept of the union learning representative seems to be of increasing interest to unions around the world. We hope this research paper will help interested unions worldwide to adopt and adapt the learning representative concept to their countries’ industrial relations structures and learning and skills systems.

Tom Wilson Director, unionlearn

Foreword

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This report compares the union learning representative in the UK with the learning representative initiative in New Zealand. The role and achievements of learning representatives and the organisation of learning is explored through the use of four case studies, two from each country. The UK cases are from a civil service department and a manufacturing company. The New Zealand cases are from an organisation that provides support to people with learning disabilities, and from a company in the retail and distribution sector. In both countries, learning representatives have been provided with some recognition in ongoing policies of government. An important factor in sustaining the initiatives is the commitment of the individual learning representatives to progressing learning within their organisations.

Abstract


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The research contained in this report presents cases of the organisation of learning representatives in two UK and two New Zealand contexts.

In the UK, a total of 38 people were interviewed at the case study sites. These included learners, ULRs, learning providers, and human resource or learning and development managers. Other interviewees from outside the sites were regional and national trade union officials, and representatives of unionlearn and the Union Learning Fund (ULF).

In New Zealand, a total of 26 people were interviewed. These included trade union national officials, representatives of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU), representatives of the Industrial Training Federation and of two industrial training organisations (ITOs), learning organisers, policy makers and learning representatives.

The UK has a much larger population than New Zealand, with a workforce of around 26 million in the UK compared with around 2.2 million in New Zealand. Reflecting this difference, the two schemes are markedly different to each other in scale.

A key difference between the two schemes is that in the UK, statutory support has been given to ULRs, whereas statutory support has not been provided to learning representatives in New Zealand.

In the UK, there was an initial recognition that ULRs might facilitate learning that allowed personal development and broader career development. The focus in New Zealand has been on facilitating the raising of general workplace-based skills to help promote the development of the economy.

In the UK cases, ULRs were organising many courses for leisure and personal development, as well as to increase their transferable skills . In New Zealand, learning representatives were facilitating their fellow workers to develop basic skills and pursue the relevant qualifications in a given sector.

While the potential partners for ULRs in learning and skills activity were not to be found easily at a sectoral

level in the UK, the role of learning representatives in New Zealand may be seen as being defined in relation to what ITOs do in the respective sectors.

A key indication of the sustainability of the initiatives is the extent to which they are embedded into wider structures and contexts. In both countries the qualifications learning representatives undertake have been accredited within broader qualifications frameworks.

In both countries, the responsibilities of learning representatives have also been recognised in different regulatory frameworks – in law in the UK and in collective employment agreements in New Zealand.

In both countries, learning representatives have been provided with some recognition in ongoing policies of government – for example, in the respective countries’ skills strategies.

In both countries an important factor identified was the commitment of the individual learning representatives to progressing learning within their organisations. This was critical in sustaining the learning initiatives in the UK and was seen as important for supporting the developing scheme in New Zealand.

Executive summary


The purpose of this publication is twofold. Firstly, it reports and compares case studies relating to the organisation of learning representatives within two employers in the UK and two others in New Zealand, and discusses ways in which the cases differ. Secondly, the publication considers the implications of the evidence for the sustainability of learning representative initiatives. There are many similarities between union learning representatives in the UK and trade union-supported learning representatives in New Zealand. There are also some important differences. Some of these differences are related to variations between the national contexts. For example, the UK has a much larger population than that of New Zealand. The UK has a population of 61 million and a workforce of 26 million, whereas New Zealand has a population of 4.3 million and a workforce of just 2.2 million. Trade union density, if measured by individual membership, is also greater in the UK, standing at 28 per cent of the workforce, compared with around 20 per cent in New Zealand, although trade union density in New Zealand is greater if calculated by the number of the workforce covered by collective employment agreements signed by trade unions.

An important consequence of the variations in size of the workforce is that there are fewer large workplaces in New Zealand than there are in the UK and instead 87 per cent of the 285,000 workplaces employ five or fewer people.Thus, one of the cases in New Zealand covers an organisation where only a few people are employed at its several sites, while the two cases in the UK cover large employers. Another important variation between the two ULR initiatives is the length of time that they have each been in existence. The UK initiative started in 1998 while the New Zealand one did not start until 2003. Before the case studies are reported, specific details of the history, responsibilities and funding of learning representatives in the two countries are set out below.

Background: trade union involvement in learning and skills in the UKTrade union involvement in learning and skills in the UK has had a long history, dating back for as long as the trade union movement has existed. However, only rarely has a union learning agenda received active support from government. An example was in the period from 1964 until the late-1970s when trade unions were involved in a range of tripartite bodies concerned with vocational learning, including the industrial training boards and the Manpower Services Commission. These bodies fell out of favour and most were abolished under the Conservative Governments of 1979-1997, which showed a greater preference for bodies that were dominated by employers and regionally based – such as the Training and Enterprise Councils – when organising state-funded vocational education. However, not only have the Labour Governments that have been in power since 1997 replaced the regional vocational education framework of the previous Conservative administrations, they have also sought to bring trade unions back into the organisation of learning. Two such reforms – namely, the legislative support for union learning representatives (ULRs) and the establishment of the Union Learning Fund (ULF) – are of particular significance here.

The UK union learning representatives initiativeIn 1997, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Council established a Learning and Services Task Group that proposed formalising ULR development through a national network, clear roles and accredited training. Trade unions’ interests coincided with those of the 1997 new Labour government that sought ways of promoting lifelong learning. The Labour Government’s The Learning Age policy document wanted to promote learning as a partnership between “employers, employees and their trade unions”.

Introduction

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Clough1 has explained how the role for ULRs was articulated as including:

identifying the learning needs of employees, ❚

including literacy and numeracy requirements, and feeding them back to management;

acting as advocates of lifelong learning and ❚

guidance, and negotiating with management for appropriate provisions;

working in partnership with management to develop ❚

lifelong learning and guidance provision and helping in assuring and improving its quality;

providing employees with individual support, ❚

including help in overcoming initial reluctance to learning and subsequent learning problems caused by lack of confidence;

providing assurance that guidance is confidential; ❚

helping all parties, including management ❚

and employees, to appreciate the transferable relationship between vocational learning and more broadly based learning for personal development.

While some employers accepted the introduction of ULRs, others opposed them. Consequently, the Government considered it necessary to grant ULRs statutory support through the 2002 amendments to the Employment Act. This allowed people paid time off to train as ULRs and to analyse learning or training needs of other employees, advise those employees on learning and training matters and arrange learning and training; and consult with an employer about training matters that affect employees. The provisions from this legislation took effect in April 2003.

To ensure that ULRs had the level of competence that the 2002 Act required, the TUC organised training that ULRs could undertake if individual trade unions were not already providing appropriate training for their own ULRs. Successful completion of this training provided ULRs with credits at Level 2 and Level 3 of the Open College Network qualifications framework. The number of ULRs has since risen from 6,500 in 2003 to around 18,000 in 2007 and to 23,000 in 2009.

The Union Learning FundThe Union Learning Fund (ULF) was established in 1998. When first established, it was administered by the Department for Education and Skills. Responsibility for the ULF was subsequently passed to a team within a non-departmental public body, the national Learning and Skills Council (LSC), which was created by the Learning and Skills Act 2000 to develop skill capacity. Responsibility for the ULF was transferred again in April 2007, this time to unionlearn, the TUC’s learning and skills organisation. The annual budget allocated to the ULF has increased markedly from the initial £2m in 1999, to £15.5m in recent years. The money has been used for a range of learning projects involving trade unions. Many of these projects have involved supporting union learning representatives. For example 3,984 ULRs were trained through ULF projects between April 2008 and April 2009. The criteria that the ULF employs to assess whether or not to support a project have changed according to the stage of development of ULRs. For example, at an early stage, applications may have been successful if they included establishing a network of ULRs as an objective. At later stages, applications may have been required to include integrating the ULRs into all different levels of the broader trade union organisation so that learning and skills become a core activity in order to be successful.

Background to the New Zealand schemeAs a former UK colony that has continued to enjoy good economic and trading relations with the UK, a number of industrial relations and vocational practices that existed in the UK have been adopted in New Zealand. Thus, tripartite industrial training boards existed previously to regulate vocational training. As in the UK, New Zealand governments adopted neo-liberal policies, particularly throughout the 1990s, when trade unions were excluded from the regulation of vocational learning. However, unlike in the UK, the New Zealand Government put a strong emphasis on industrial – rather than regional

1 Clough, B. (2008): “Unions and learning: an historical overview” in Journal of In-service Education, Volume 34, Number 4, pp 399–422.


– vocational training arrangements and replaced the industrial training boards with employer-dominated industrial training organisations that were co-ordinated by a national industrial training federation. When a Labour-led coalition was elected, they recognised that trade unions could make a contribution to vocational learning and trade unions were granted rights of representation on the industrial training organisations, which the new government continued to support. Trade unions were also considered an important partner when a tripartite body, Skill New Zealand, was established to promote greater awareness of learning opportunities available to workers. Skill New Zealand was the body to which the leading trade union body, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU), first proposed the idea of learning representatives.

The New Zealand learning representative initiativeThe NZCTU were aware of the UK’s union learning representative scheme. They approached Skill New Zealand with the idea. Skill New Zealand then proposed the idea of learning representatives to the relevant government body, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) in 2003. The TEC agreed that an exercise should be conducted to define the potential scope for a pilot project. As part of the scoping project, sectors in which learning representatives would be introduced during the pilot stage were identified, the role of the learning representative was decided, the content of training for learning representatives was defined and the place of the learning representatives’ competence in New Zealand’s national qualification was agreed. The scoping project was carried out and completed by July 2005 and the pilot project, involving 100 learning representatives, was completed in 2007. The key responsibilities of learning representatives in New Zealand are to:

promote learning in general and industry-specific ❚

training in particular

provide information and advice about learning and ❚

training to workers

advocate the learning needs of workers and the ❚

accessibility of training

work with co-workers to identify and access ❚

appropriate support for language, literacy and numeracy issues in learning

work with others to explore additional learning issues, ❚

including those related to more effective participation at work and beyond

work in co-operation with employers, unions, ITOs ❚

and Modern Apprenticeship Co-ordinators to promote training and learning and facilitate first contact for new learners

maintain a link with the appropriate industry training ❚

organisation as part of its stakeholder group

co-ordinate activities with local ITO agents and ❚

assessors and with union representatives on ITO boards and standards committees

advocate and give initial advice to workers on ❚

the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and pathways towards qualifications.

The initial training of learning representatives has now been assimilated into the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework and successful completion of that training provides most of the credits that are required to move from Level 2 to Level 3 in the National Certificate in Employment Relations. In this sense, the standards of training for learning representatives are comparable to that delivered in the UK. While the New Zealand Government has supported the introduction of learning representatives and there are many legal acknowledgements of learning representatives such as the assimilation of qualifications into the National Qualifications Framework, the New Zealand Government has not followed the example of the UK government in providing learning representatives with statutory rights. In New Zealand the Employment Relations Act (2000) provided trade unions with the right to allocate a number of days for paid employment relations education to its delegates and the Health and Safety in Employment Act (2002) also provided health and safety representatives a minimum of paid annual leave to attend approved courses. In this sense, learning

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representatives in New Zealand enjoy fewer rights than other trade union representatives, although this disparity may be due to the recent nature of the learning representative initiative.

Funding of the New Zealand learning representative initiative The funding provided for the learning representative initiative in New Zealand was much lower than that received by trade unions through the ULF in the UK. A government budget allocation of NZ$1.12m (£433,397) was given over a four-year period to conduct the scoping exercise and the pilot project. The budget sum was increased to NZ$766,000 (£296,413) per annum in 2008 and linked to the increasing involvement of trade unions and learning representatives in literacy support.

SummaryLearning representatives in the UK and New Zealand have been introduced into different contexts. The UK has a much larger population and workforce than is found in New Zealand. The workforce in the UK tends to be employed in larger workplaces than is the case in New Zealand. The ULR scheme in the UK was introduced earlier than its counterpart in New Zealand.

The UK scheme was introduced when the existing vocational educational framework was being changed. ULRs have been given statutory support and have received considerable amount of government development support. From the start, there was a broad vision of their potential role, covering vocational education for lifelong learning as well as personal development.

In New Zealand, a lesser sum of money has been made available and statutory rights do not exist. Learning representatives have been introduced into a context where a strong, regional vocational learning infrastructure already existed, with existing agencies already organising vocational education. The role of learning representatives has initially been defined to work with those other agencies.


The case studiesThe research is organised around four case studies: two in the UK and two in New Zealand. The first in the UK is of a site in the department of the civil service situated in the North-East of England. The second is a manufacturing plant in the Yorkshire and Humberside region. These cases were chosen to illustrate the different types of environment in which ULRs work.

The two case studies in New Zealand were chosen because they had been at the forefront of developments in the learning representative initiative. The first case study involves the Service and Food Workers Union’s negotiation of the introduction of learning representatives into IDEA Services, a not-for-profit organisation that provides community-based services for people with a learning disability. The second focuses on the National Distribution Union’s planned introduction of learning representatives into a retail company in the private sector.

Data collection methodsIn considering issues of sustainability it is important to look at the broad infrastructure supporting ULRs/learning representatives outside of the organisation, as well as to look at the individual sites where they work. Therefore a variety of stakeholders in each country were interviewed for each case study. In total 38 people were interviewed in the UK (see Table One, Appendix). In some cases, people were interviewed more than once, and the learning convenors at the different sites were interviewed several times. In New Zealand, a total of 26 people were interviewed (see Table Two, Appendix). In some instances, the interviews conducted were with people who had been interviewed earlier as part of related projects. While these earlier interviews helped inform the interviews conducted with this project, they are not reported in the table.

Approach of the researchersThe authors are two UK academics who have considerable experience of conducting qualitative

research within the organisational, accounting, and management field. We share a view that the scheme investigated here has considerable potential to enhance learning in the workforce. As committed trade unionists, we also hold the view that trade unions have an important role to play in lifelong learning more generally. We are therefore keen to conduct rigorous research that has the potential to be useful to all stakeholders involved in these learning initiatives.

Methodology

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DescriptionThe trade union involved is Public and Commercial Services (PCS). Trade union activities within PCS tend to be organised to reflect the divisions between departments within the Civil Service. The study has been conducted at one office within the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which has a national workforce of around 125,000 people. A national official in PCS compared the advancement of the ULR initiative in DWP with other sectors of the Civil Service and described DWP as being “miles ahead”. PCS had been successful in a series of bids for ULF monies and so had been able to progress through a series of goals, from first establishing a network of ULRs and conducting a learning needs analysis, to subsequently embedding the ULRs that were recruited into the culture and structure of the union.

Although PCS first had ULRs around 2000, it was not until the statutory rights took effect in April 2003 and the ULF-funded projects were being implemented that large numbers were recruited and became visible. At the outset, ULRs had been recruited as volunteers. While this approach helped to establish the role of ULRs, it led to an uneven spread in different workplaces, with ULRs being recruited primarily among members who already held positions within their branch. Alternatively, where the ULRs were new to trade union activity, their branches were unaware that the ULRs existed and some ULRs perceived themselves as being linked to the training department at their place of employment.

To help ensure more even representation of ULRs across workplaces, PCS introduced a policy where ULRs had to be nominated and supported by their branch. PCS also changed its constitution so that the post of regional learning officer existed in every region, meaning that regional committees discussed the development of learning at each of their meetings. As part of the provision of ULF monies, regional project workers with responsibility for co-ordinating learning had been appointed to the eleven regions of PCS. The

full-time official reported that PCS had articulated a strategy to make the ULR initiative sustainable within PCS. This included assimilating regional educational officials into PCS’s permanent workforce to provide ongoing support. Within the region, there were branches. Each branch was expected to appoint a branch education co-ordinator. The branch education co-ordinators were assimilated into their branch executive committee. They were expected to report to that committee about their work and to seek guidance from the branch executive as well as to provide general leadership of the ULRs at a workplace. The ULRs then contributed to the organisation of learning at the workplace. This structure had been established at the case study site.

Background to the organisation of learningAt the case study site, there was a branch learning co-ordinator who worked full-time in the area of learning, first through negotiating full-time release by her employer to establish the learning centre (see below) and subsequently by obtaining financial support from a funding body. Additionally, there were eight other union learning representatives to cater for the 4,000 other staff on that site. ULRs are entitled to up to 70% official time under the current agreement between PCS and DWP management but it was reported that ULRs did not always take the full amount to perform their ULR duties.

PCS organised training for the ULRs. This initial training took place over five days and was based on courses that the TUC organised. Initially, this covered simply the role of the ULR. However, a national official reported how the earlier tendency for some ULRs to become too assimilated into the training provisions of the employer led to PCS “changing their learning reps courses to include recruitment and linking in with the branch”. He added: “the sort of message we’re giving learning reps is ‘You are part of the branch structure and you are a union rep first, then you’re a learning rep.’” At the site,

UK case study: the civil service


new ULRs would also be mentored by people who were more experienced.

Support for the ULRs in this case was provided in a number of ways by PCS. Firstly there was a regional officer who had responsibility for learning. These people were full-time employees of PCS and many were funded through grants from the ULF. Secondly, networks of ULRs were also organised around particular departments, such as DWP, and these networks held regular meetings. A ULR conference was also held once a year. Thirdly, there was contact with the local branch. Support materials were also provided. At a national level, there was an e-mail newsletter. Additionally, for DWP representatives, there was a whole pack of materials including recipe cards that helped ULRs follow through on problems. Additionally the regional officials would put local ULRs in touch with the unionlearn network and regional unionlearn project workers.

The regional unionlearn provided a wide range of support. One project worker was in the process of organising access to a NVQ to either Level 3 or 4 for all ULRs in the region that wanted to take up the opportunity, to provide information, advice and guidance for learners. The regional unionlearn was also guiding trade union learning centres – including the one at the DWP – through a formal matrix Standard accreditation to enhance the standing of those centres. Regional unionlearn was also in the process of appointing a higher education officer to negotiate reductions from colleges in the cost of higher education for trade union members, and to prepare a database of such information for ULRs to draw upon. Regional unionlearn was also organizing courses for ULRs from a range of trade unions to facilitate networking opportunities and the exchanging of information and experiences across trade unions.

The DWP site where the fieldwork was conducted was serviced well by local colleges. Indeed, some colleges were prepared to provide tutors with mobile equipment such as laptop computers that could access any web-based resources that were necessary

for teaching and assessing learners. Notably, the tutors from one provider worked in pairs, as this allowed a degree of flexibility for one tutor to stay for a longer period of weeks should a course overrun due to the different pace of learning by individuals.

Local management at the site were generally seen as supportive of the ULR initiative. A learning and development (L&D) manager reported that one of the ULRs was employed in the learning and development team. DWP had clear guidelines on the learning and development that different levels of staff could receive from the department and applicants had to put forward a strong “business case” for learning provided by DWP. The L&D manager reported that L&D personnel were able to point people in the direction of ULRs where no business case could be made. A reverse situation was also reported by the learning co-ordinator who said “people come to me wanting to do IT / computers, but they don’t know what it is they want to do, so by talking with me I can point them back to the management route, the corporate packages”. Furthermore, a steering committee had been established at the site. This committee including representation from the management at the site, local colleges who provided courses, the TUC’s regional unionlearn, as well as the ULRs, although it was reported that some parties had not grasped its role and did not give it active support.

Role of ULRsThe expectations of PCS is that their ULRs will conduct a survey of members’ learning interests and needs, make links with local colleges and providers and act as a channel of information for members on available courses, so their main role is providing information and advice to members.

A number of surveys of workers’ learning needs had been conducted at the site. The surveys were reported to have started as general surveys and then became increasingly targeted – such as focusing on language and the types and level of language desired by prospective learners – to identify demand. It was

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reported that amongst other things, the ULRs had initially identified:

300 people who wanted to do a language of some ❚

description, ranging from about 118 wanting to do Spanish right up to A Level, with others wanting to do Turkish, Japanese, Thai, Mandarin, Dutch and Greek

60 people wanting to do the basic introduction to IT ❚

a number of people who had expressed interest in ❚

doing a digital photography course.

Unlike at some other sites of PCS where quality assurance requirements had led to people not being able to provide advice and guidance around the Skills for Life project because they do not have the appropriate qualifications, the learning co-ordinator and another ULR had undertaken a NVQ Level 3 in Support and Guidance in order to be able to support such learners around issues of literacy and numeracy. Consequently, screening of workers for basic skills was also being undertaken by ULRs and advice was being given around learning needs.

The role of ULRs included pointing people in the direction of courses run by local colleges that met their needs. Some courses were provided in-house, sometimes drawing on tutors from local colleges. In these instances, the role of ULRs included costing the courses to try to ensure that the cost was not prohibitive, booking relevant accommodation on site and ensuring that the appropriate insurance was in place. An innovative development in this case was the development of a database of skills of workers, who could provide additional courses including Introduction to IT and a course on digital photography.

An important role of ULRs was to negotiate with different levels of managers, first to acquire a learning centre (see below) and subsequently and more frequently to ensure that people could have time off for learning.

Organisation of learningPCS has pursued a lifelong learning agenda for a number of years, providing resources for educational staff and a learning centre, centrally. In 2005, PCS had

negotiated the right to a room at the fieldwork site, to which they received access in February 2006. The room contained a couple of computers, desks and filing cabinets. The room had been formally opened as a learning centre by the local MP towards the end of 2006. Although described as a learning centre, the room’s most common use was as an office in which skills analyses were performed, survey data was collated and stored and courses were planned and organised, although not generally delivered.

Delivery of courses at the fieldwork site tended to take place in other rooms. ULRs organise learning to take place in the company’s information technology (IT) suites, other offices and conference suite, particularly between 4.30–6.30 pm when work has finished and the managers were not using the rooms. The timing of such learning was considered optimal by learners, as it meant that they could stay behind immediately after work rather than going home and then going out again to a college, which would have been prohibitive. Some learners, particularly those who required training in basic skills, were directed towards appropriate courses at local colleges. However, subsequently, these courses were delivered on site by a mobile unit from a local college. For some courses delivered in-house – such as the Introduction to IT and the Digital Photography courses – by PCS members, manuals were also developed to help people learn and practise their skills at their own pace.

In addition, of particular importance was the existence of a learning co-ordinator on full-time secondment to the centre. Her role was central in supporting ULRs and learners, and the development of the centre more generally. As time went on her role developed, so that by the end of the research period in July 2008, she was visiting and mentoring other ULRs within the region and being available to help out at other sites which were developing ULR activity.

AchievementsAn important achievement of the ULR initiative is that it opens up learning opportunities in places and at times that workers find most accessible. As


stated earlier, in this case many of the courses were held between 4.30 and 6.30 pm, which meant that learners did not need to go home from work and then prepare to go out again to a college. Perhaps more importantly, the workplace was not such a daunting learning environment as the alternatives. A tutor from a learning provider reported how colleges could appear to be hostile environments:

“I mean you go to any college and there’s always kids hanging around the door and, you know, if you’re not a lecturer, what are you? Do you know what I mean? It is quite daunting. … You know, you get looked at. … And for an older person to walk into the college I think it is very hard, but to bring the college to them is much easier.”(Tutor)

The consequence was that many learners had undertaken learning that they would not have otherwise undertaken. These included basic skills training, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Greek, German, British Sign Language, and introductory IT courses. Similarly a whole range of non-vocational courses had been introduced through the learning centre. These included exercise classes such as Tai-chi and Boxercise, and other talents such as nail art. The importance of these classes was highlighted by the learning co-ordinator:

“It’s that kind of thing that people want as relaxation, as a release, as a stress coping mechanism. Not everybody wants to, you know, bang on and get a degree or a Masters, or you know, whatever. They want something that will give them social interaction without too much effort … a safe social interaction I think”. (Branch learning co-ordinator)

In order to keep a record of the number of learners the centre reach, a skills register was kept that identified the skills needs of all the learners who had an interaction with the learning centre at some point or other. At the end of the research there were 1,244 people on the skills register, which represented 25 per cent of the workforce at that site. This is an impressive

achievement. Additionally there were numerous anecdotes given of how individual learners’ lives had been transformed through learning provided under the ULR initiative at the site. One example provided by the branch learning co-ordinator in the summer of 2006 will suffice:

“One lady I worked with up until Christmas when I came over here is in her mid 50s and wanted to do a computer course but it turned out that she really, really wanted to do a course in aromatherapy and massage. So we found her a course on aromatherapy and massage and she aced the test in biology on muscle groups. She actually came top in her year group. She went on holiday to India, they go every year and while she was there she did a Head Massage Course and came back with a Certificate in the Indian version of Indian Head Massage. She then aced the second part of her test and now has a Diploma in Holistic Therapy. Because her standard was so high, the college said she could do a 10 week English Indian Head Massage course and gain a diploma in that too. A friend had said “I’m looking for a therapist for a charity that I’m working for. Get your diploma and get back to me.” She’s already thinking about setting up her own holistic therapy business from her own house. She’s got a room set up, she’s got the table and all the kit and everything and now she’s looking to leave and move on to do something that she’s always wanted to do. Now I think that is tremendous. I think that is a fabulous result.”(Branch learning co-ordinator)

An additional achievement of the ULR initiative may be seen as the more positive perception by both current and prospective union members of the trade union. One full-time official said that he would “say learning in itself is a fabulous activity for a union to actually embrace”. The consequence is that people associate positive experiences around learning with the trade unions. Another full-time official did not associate learning activities with the provision of a service to members as consumers. Rather:

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“I think it’s raised the profile of the union in workplaces, so, you know, all these people that are doing the learning wouldn’t have been in contact otherwise and they see the union in quite a positive light. You know, it’s not just for problems … They’re not passive recipients of the service by definition. They’re actually doing something and developing themselves. I mean it does fit the organising agenda in that way.”(Full-time union official)

The learning agenda was leading to recruitment of some new members.

“When I did Spanish I wasn’t in the union and I didn’t realise I could do it, but they did state that it was open to everyone and then after that I then joined the union. So it did show them in a different light because I thought it was just all about like strikes and just like disputes and things like that. I didn’t realise they put things on.”(Learner)

A related enduring achievement of the ULR initiative that hints at its sustainability was that apart from the creation of the ULR role to help facilitate learning opportunities and procedures for conducting that role within organisations, certain types of activists were attracted to it. These ULRs were reaping rewards from helping people to develop and therefore likely to contribute enthusiastically to their roles. A regional unionlearn official explained that ULRs would continue to conduct their role “because you do it because you love it and it’s the buzz you get when you see somebody blossom”.

Discussion of achievements should not be limited to opportunities offered to learners or the development of the trade union. Consideration should also be given to the opportunities being provided to ULRs and the development of networks such as unionlearn. On the question of the development of ULRs at the site, the branch learning co-ordinator who had had a major input into the centre’s development emphasised the importance of this work:

“I’m not just developing staff. I’m developing the union learning reps themselves. I’m making them look quite deep and find skills that they didn’t know they had. … I’m quite passionate about people doing some form of learning and if it develops them and sets them off on another track I think that is a success.”(Branch learning co-ordinator)

More generally, the achievements of ULRs that were often realised with support from unionlearn include:

10 ULRs already attained Level 3 NVQ in Advice and ❚

Guidance.

A further 68 ULRs registered for Level 3 NVQ in ❚

Advice and Guidance.

A number of learning centres had already attained ❚

matrix Standard accreditation and other union learning centres were being prepared for matrix Standard accreditation.

The ULR initiative also had benefits for workers as employees and their employers. Employers were reported by many of our respondents as not realising that a number of their employees had difficulties with the abilities covered by the Skills for Life portfolio such as adult literacy, numeracy, and English more generally where it was an employee’s second language. The ULR initiative was enabling workers to admit to problems – and seek their resolution – within the sanctuary of organisations that were there to protect the workers’ interests. The outcome was a general upgrade of workers’ skills which developed their confidence and also had the knock-on benefit of creating a more highly skilled workforce for the employer.


DescriptionThe second case is based in a large UK manufacturing organisation in the North of England. Previously, the region had an extensive manufacturing base, and historically the local economy depended upon manufacturing industry for survival. The company is now part of a large multinational organisation, and has recently seen a change of ownership. There are 4,000 workers on the site, and a number of different unions are recognised. The main union involved with learning activity at the site is Amicus (now part of Unite).

The approach of Amicus nationally to learning strategy is to embed the learning agenda into overall union activity. As such a national network of ULRs has been established. Additionally the role of the ULR has been built into the union’s rule-book, so they are seen as part and parcel of the representative structure of the union. One of AMICUS’s full-time officials with responsibility for learning suggested that although perhaps greater understanding was still required as to how ULRs could be more embedded into the structure of the union: “there’s certainly an understanding of the importance of the learning agenda and what it can do to deliver results for the union”. Therefore, there is support for learning activities at the site from Amicus structures, and particularly the regional learning officer.

The major focus of union learning within the company takes place at a trade union learning centre which was established some time ago. A number of courses take place in the centre offered by a range of different providers. Below we outline the background to the organisation of learning, the role of ULRs, achievements in the case, and issues of sustainability.

Background to the organisation of learningThe trade union learning centre was established in 2000. Initially an Amicus convenor who was particularly committed to developing learning

opportunities within the workplace approached the company to request that a room be made available that had drop-in facilities for learning and where courses could be provided. The ULRs remembered that the centre was difficult to establish at the beginning and the convenor (who later became the centre manager) had to be very persistent in seeking funding from different sources. A regional unionlearn worker told the story of the determination of the convenor in getting the centre established:

“He had to scratch around, had to look for funding, had to try and gain support, had to do a lot of things on his own, had to argue with his employer as a lone voice, had the support and back-up of a few of his colleagues, I can’t remember how many years it is now… but to turn that place into somewhere where you actually quite like to go and do your learning is quite an achievement”.(unionlearn project worker)

The convenor initially recruited the ULRs from those who currently held trade union positions. The expectation was that as the centre developed, more ULRs would be recruited. Clearly there were some at the beginning who – despite the commitment of the convenor and the initial group of ULRs – did not expect the centre to last. One ULR told how at an initial meeting in the centre a group of senior managers had come to have a look:

“They were all coming in and sitting there and looking at you to see who’s involved and one particular manager turned round and said “What happens when it closes then? What happens to all this kit that I’m looking at? All these computers and printers, what happens to all that?” Well that was one of our senior managers, wasn’t it? And we sat there in amazement. You know, it was only about the second meeting. You’re thinking “Are these guys going to grasp what we’re about here or what?” And that’s the sort of framework we were starting from”.(Union learning rep)

UK case study: Manufacturing

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The centre is now firmly established as a thriving trade union learning centre, which is increasingly working in partnership with the company. The challenge of engaging learners has been approached persistently by the ULRs and particularly by the centre manager.

Increasingly the success of the centre has meant that managers are keen to have company-run courses in it. One example is that the centre runs some of the courses under the company’s apprenticeship scheme. As well as providing a useful source of income to maintain the centre, this also enabled the union to recruit new apprentices and, as the centre manager suggested, make them aware of the role of the union right at the start of their working lives. The company also provides release for the centre manager to stay in his role. In order to manage the development of the centre, a partnership committee has been established comprising of the centre manager, other trade union officials and members of management. For the first time the centre manager has been provided with access to the company intranet in order to promote courses.

He reported that the company now recognises the value of the centre, but he was keen to protect its use as a centre for trade union courses at least three days a week using trade union tutors. This was important, especially given that the regional learning officer told a story where in another similar company where a successful trade union learning centre had been established, the company then took it over, much to the disillusionment of the ULRs. The centre manager has therefore now made it quite clear that although they are happy to work with the company, the learning centre remains first and foremost a trade union learning resource. Recently the company and the union had signed a learning agreement. The centre manager outlined how this had cemented the relationship between them in regard to the learning centre:

“We signed a learning agreement in January this year [i.e. 2008] that further cements the partnership between the Centre and the company. So it talks about the role of learning reps and what the company would expect and we would expect. It talks about the involvement of the centre and how it is going to be run

and it also talks about different aspects of training and learning and release. So we’ve got to accept that we’re on company premises and the company pay most of the bills and they pay my wages. They want a return from it, but we still put courses on and we facilitate that and we charge the company to put the course on. So we can raise funds from the company and we can buy into other courses and subsidise courses”. (Learning centre manager)

So, after a number of years, the company and the union had found a mutually acceptable way of co-operating around the centre.

Role of ULRsAn important issue in establishing the learning centre was the distinctive needs of the workforce concerned. The ULRs felt that the age of the workforce meant that they had to invest a considerable amount of time in encouraging workers to attend courses:

“That’s where our difficulty lies in promoting learning. Obviously our guys, that aren’t the young ones, the apprentices, you know their age is 45 to 47 average. If we’re trying to encourage learning at that age then there has to be some sort of a motive to come back into learning and I think that’s a difficult area to target, if you like. Younger people I think are more receptive”.(Union learning rep)

The issue of recruiting and developing new ULRs was seen as fundamental by the centre manager and the ULRs in this case. However, for a number of reasons, this was seen as a difficult task. ULRs speculated that the nature of the industry meant that it was difficult to find people who wanted to become engaged with learning activities. One outlined their frustration as follows:

“I do read the Learning Rep magazine and when you look at that you think “God, you know, that’s how we want to be,” but when you look at the industries involved you think “Well, I wonder if that’s ‘owt to do with it?”(Union learning rep)


In particular, the male dominated nature of manufacturing meant that there were few women available to recruit to ULR roles, yet a lot of the success stories they had read were examples of where women were becoming more involved in ULR activity. Recent discussions about the provision of new courses were seen as one way of encouraging new learners and potential ULRs into the centre.

As well as recruiting more ULRs and learners, other roles of the ULRs included liaising with management and making sure that courses were costed appropriately. This was important so that profit made from the courses desired by management could be put into helping to sustain the centre. ULRs also scheduled time for different courses; liaised with providers who had to come from other places; and attended different workshops around funding opportunities such as exploring the Government’s Train to Gain programme.

Organisation of learningThe main training room in the centre has a central desk with a large white board at the front. There are desks around the walls with workstations to facilitate one-to-one tuition. Although this is clearly a training facility, it has an informal feel. There is also a separate meeting area, and an office for the centre manager.

An important aspect of the learning provided in the centre is that it reflects the variety of learning needs of the workforce. Although a number of the courses provided by the learning centre are vocationally based, there is a recognition amongst all concerned that some of the skills learned, particularly in relation to IT, are of importance outside the workplace. For example learners on one of the ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) course being run at the centre were there for a number of reasons. For one it was useful in making her more efficient in her job:

“It’s definitely saved me time on my job, just silly little icons and things that you would never have known. You just go about it the longest way round so that

you know how to do it and coming here and the tutor showing you “Well there’s a button for that,” and it just … well it helps me … saves me time”.(Learner)

For another the course was helping them with their trade union role:

“I took a position as a safety rep about two years ago … but I’m quite illiterate with the computers and taking a few courses with the safety rep’ing I was find that computers was coming into it a lot more, so I originally put my name down to do a course on computers through the union”.(Learner)

Other learners talked about how learning about computers meant that they could do more with their children and grandchildren at home. For another set of learners, the motivation related to their forthcoming redundancy:

“We’re being made redundant and when we were interviewed by HR and they sort of ask you about your aspirations and things like that, they recommended that we should probably do a course like this because it would maybe help us in whatever we decide to do, get another job if you’ve got the qualifications behind you.”(Learner)

One of the ULRs highlighted how enhancing the skills of their members was particularly important in relation to the threat of redundancy:

“There is a need because at the end of the day [some parts of the company] are on the verge of closing down and some of them guys have been here 20 or 30 years, never applied for a job since, you know, and the difficulty is when you do you’ve got to fill a form in. There are very great difficulties in doing that and selling themselves into another department, so what we did here was to put on a course about interview techniques, and there was a real need for that sort of thing”. (Union learning rep)

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This point was echoed by an HR manager in the firm who suggested that he and the centre manager had recently been discussing running some courses that were not explicitly work related, with the intention of encouraging those who had not engaged in learning to test the waters. He suggested that encouraging learning within the firm was a “massive culture change” and that encouraging workers to attend courses at the learning centre was helpful because it was “to a more or lesser extent trade union led, there isn’t the sort of element of scepticism, if you like”. So whereas workers in a traditional industry were suspicious of an HR manager suggesting they attend courses and develop their skills, they were more open to engaging in learning activities in a trade union-based learning centre.

One of the more contentious issues in the organisation of learning is whether the company provides release for employees to engage in learning activities. Clearly in this case people are more likely to do the learning if it is in work rather than their own time, though some of the courses, such as language and digital photography courses have been organised around workers shift patterns. Employee release for learning activities is agreed through an application for release to the relevant team leader / line manager which is then authorised at a higher level. In practice there can be opposition to employees securing release from both these sources. The obvious question presented is: What does the company stand to benefit from this learning? Agreement to release was seen as a potential hurdle that needed to be overcome. In some cases there was dispute at senior levels of management about the company benefits of certain courses. So, for example, both the HR manager on the centre’s partnership committee and the centre manager had argued that pre-retirement courses should be done in company time. Yet agreement to this from the necessary sources had not been forthcoming. So agreement to release time was seen as an important hurdle to overcome.

There were a number of factors that made the learning centre attractive to learners. It was clearly important that it was on the site where they worked, and that

learning could be fitted in around different shifts. Courses were therefore seen as accessible. Learners also valued the friendly nature of the environment and the support of the ULRs, particularly the centre manager. For example one woman told how attending courses at the centre had enhanced both her confidence, and her aspirations with regard to work:

“I’m actually a cleaner. I didn’t have any confidence whatsoever, I’ve had no qualifications, you know, as such. I’ve always been frightened of things like this and I saw the notice and I contacted [the centre manager] and I’ve gone from there and I think it’s absolutely marvellous … I’ve got a lot of confidence since … I’ve started taking other outside qualifications … If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be doing it and I would still be at square one. It’s certainly helped me an awful lot”.(Learner)

The friendly nature of the environment was manifested in the attitudes of the tutors, and the way in which the process of learning occurred. Learners appreciated the fact that they progressed through their work at their own pace, were helped out when necessary by the tutors, and weren’t made to feel stupid, something that they may have experienced in their previous educational experiences. Even the nature of the examination process was seen as different:

“I mean you’ve got to obviously do it like an exam, but you don’t feel like you’re getting yourself all worked up like you would at a college. It’s definitely more friendly”. (Learner)

Similarly one of the tutors pointed out that whilst in the centre learners were all the same, and that people from the manual side and the office side were learning together.

A further productive area of activity related to the use of the centre by apprentices. The centre was heavily involved in the training of the 200 apprentices on site. This was seen to have a number of benefits for the union. Not only did it encourage


their recruitment to the union but it also enabled some informal guidance to be provided by the ULRs. As the centre manager suggested:

“We are involved from day one. We actually sit on the interview panels of applicants and we sit all the way through their apprenticeship on progress meetings and everything … By the end of their first year most will have joined the union… If somebody’s got a problem and comes to see me or if the company or the college thinks there’s a problem with what they are doing, then I can sort of pull them in here and have a gentle talk to them and explain to them the error of their ways and where it might go if the company decided to discipline them”(Learning Centre Manager)

Therefore this was an important way of engaging workers with the centre right at the start of their employment with the company.

AchievementsThe major achievement in this case is that the centre is well established and provides a useful trade union learning resource. The pioneering work of the centre manager was seen as important in this and although this had required a lot of work at the time, the ULRs felt it had been worth it:

“It’s a colossal achievement, to be honest, to let the company let you have the room, let alone go along with you and sort of help you kit it out in a certain way”.(Union learning representative)

Additionally, the company have benefitted considerably from the increased skills of the workforce. Although these benefits are difficult to quantify the HR manager interviewed was explicit that there were clearly business benefits in releasing the centre manager from his day job to run the centre and encourage learners to attend various courses.

A further achievement had been the ability to offer courses at a low cost to both individual learners and the company. Various examples were provided of how by using a trade union centre with trade union tutors

various courses could be delivered at a price that was not prohibitive to prospective learners. Similarly successful attempts had been made to extend learning activities beyond the learning centre. So, for example, the centre had become involved in a national book challenge where people were encouraged to read books or join the local library. This was seen as “an extension of where we’re going from classroom-based learning into people developing themselves really and bringing them back into reading”.

In conclusion, it was evident that the centre was firmly established for the long term, though the centre manager was keen to encourage effective succession planning:

“It probably needs a five year plan of where we’re going to be in five years. We should sit down and say “Well is this the right place? Is it the right size? And talk to the company and say “What are we going to do in the future? … We’ve got to be prepared in five years time for how we develop.”(Learning centre manager)

Such preparation involved having a vision for the trade union run centre to both continue and extend the access to learning that had been successfully achieved so far.

In summary, by the end of the research period the learning centre was opening five days a week and around 300-350 learners a year were using it. On top of this there were the apprentices who dropped in on an ad-hoc basis for help when necessary. Additionally other trade unionists from other companies were dropping in to find out how the centre worked, with a view to seeking to apply it as a model of learning activity in their own company. The centre manager summarised the overall achievements :

“We’re growing in stature with what we’re doing. People have accepted it’s a fairly good model, so I’m quite pleased with that as well. It’s pleasing really. So hopefully we’ll go on for a long, long time, or who knows?”(Learning centre manager)

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DescriptionThe trade union involved is the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU). The organisation into which learning representatives are being introduced is IDEA Services. IDEA Services is a not-for-profit organisation that provides people with intellectual or learning difficulties with a range of community-based health care services including residential services for approximately 2,600 people in 840 homes, vocational services for 4,500 people in 170 centres and family services for 1,500 people from 10 family centres and numerous additional advisory services. Most employees at IDEA Services are community service workers. The role of the community service workers is to support the users of the service. The contexts in which SFWU members will work vary with the types of services that are provided. Some service users will live in a home of four or five in which they will each have a bedroom. Alternatively, individual service users will receive support to live in their own homes. Other users will receive support around work experiences either at the learning centres or elsewhere in the community. Community service workers help people with disabilities to cope in their homes, the working environment and the broader community. The work thus entails administrative tasks as well as social care and support. Many workers will either work alone or with one or two others at different homes or centres.

As a not-for-profit organisation that depends on government monies, IDEA Services have to provide training to meet Ministry of Health specifications for qualified personnel and to facilitate a highly skilled staff in a sector where relatively low pay has sometimes made it difficult to retain workers.

Background to the organisation of learningAs in other sectors in New Zealand, vocational learning is overseen and regulated by an industrial training organisation (ITO). The relevant ITO for the industry is Careerforce which is the ITO for the health and disability sector. Traditionally, when people joined

IDEA Services, they would receive initial core training that would provide them with sufficient knowledge to be able to conduct their job. This initial core training would be provided by IDEA Services’ learning advisors at regional offices. Workers would then be expected to pursue one of the Level 4 qualifications regulated by Careerforce. Much of this training was organised through IDEA Services’ Centre for Learning. A key problem with that level of qualification was that it was a lengthy process and some people who had not been involved in learning for some time tended to become despondent and dropped out before they had completed the course and acquired the qualification. IDEA Services identified that a new Level 2 National Qualification in Community Support Services (Foundation Skills) could link more easily to the core training that new employees undertook. Careerforce was also developing a Level 3 National Certificate in Community Support (Core Competencies) to which people could move on completion of the Level 2 qualification. They could then progress up the qualification scale to a Level 4 certificate. Consequently, people would be able to obtain relevant qualifications from an earlier stage and would still be able to advance to a higher level.

The SFWU had advertised amongst their members for people who were prepared to stand as learning representatives in 2005 and had put forward the names of around 15 to be trained under the pilot project. It was the time when IDEA Services were starting to redefine their training needs and provisions. IDEA Services management recognised that the proposals for learning representatives could dovetail with their intended changes to their training programme and that learning representatives would be able to work in conjunction with the Centre for Learning to help implement the change in the qualifications. The ITO’s development of the new Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications described above was, thus, taking place simultaneously with the NZCTU’s piloting of the learning representatives project and the SFWU agreed with IDEA Services that some of their members could undertake the learning representative training in either Wellington or Christchurch.

New Zealand Case Study: IDEA Services


As learning representatives in New Zealand do not enjoy the same statutory rights as ULRs in the UK, it is necessary for trade unions to establish whatever rights learning representatives will have through a collective employment agreement with the employer. In 2007, the SFWU were able to agree the following provisions in a clause entitled “Joint Development Commitment/ Learning Representatives” in the collective employment agreement.

“The parties record their intention to work together to develop a framework to support development opportunities for all employees which also meets the needs of the employer’s services. All employees will be encouraged to develop skills relevant to their work. Appropriate allowance will be made within work time for training to achieve the qualifications and competencies within this agreement.

“In order to facilitate a culture of training and development the employer shall recognise employee-elected learning representatives, whose role will be to support and advocate for employees who have registered as trainees for NZQA[New Zealand Qualifications Authority] approved qualifications.”

The agreement opened up the potential for learning representatives to be elected throughout New Zealand. IDEA Services is divided geographically into 21 areas and it was anticipated that there would be around five learning representatives per area, meaning that there would be over 100 learning representatives in IDEA Services across New Zealand.

In 2008, the SFWU negotiated with IDEA Services over the responsibilities of learning representatives, the qualifications that the learning representatives needed to undertake and how the learning representatives would liaise with IDEA Services’ Centre for Learning staff and other bodies.

Role of learning representativesThe role of learning representatives is one that is still emerging due to the recent nature of the innovation.

Those learning representatives interviewed suggested that there was the room to contribute in a variety of ways:

“I thought it would be good to pass on the knowledge to those that struggle to learn anything, just to help other people, really. I think that it is a good idea, learning reps... there’s a lot of people in the service who aren’t really literate and that and they’re quite shy about coming forward about things and so to be a sort of mouthpiece for them. It sort of ties in with being a delegate. Learning reps goes hand-in-hand with that.”(Learning rep)

In addition to the responsibilities covered by the general initial definition of learning representatives’ role in New Zealand, detailed above, the role of learning representatives negotiated between the SFWU and IDEA Services included:

building an up-to-date portfolio of information on ❚

internal learning opportunities within the sector

identifying appropriate language, literacy and ❚

numeracy support for people at IDEA Services with such needs

participating in their own relevant ongoing ❚

professional development

maintaining and encouraging positive attitudes to ❚

ongoing learning and development.

In conducting that role, learning representatives were expected to liaise with IDEA Services learning advisors over the availability of courses, to report their learning representative activities to the Centre for Learning and for learning representative team members to hold regular meetings with the Centre for Learning staff and the ITO’s workplace advisor.

As part of their initial responsibilities, learning representatives will help two broad groups of people who work at IDEA Services. In 2009, the new Level 2 New Zealand Certificate in Community Support Services (Foundation Skills) was in place. The learning representatives help and advise their fellow workers about the new Level 2 qualification

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and to help facilitate that learning. The second group of people that the learning representatives were to help were a few hundred people who started on the original Level 4 qualification and are committed to completing it. The learning representatives also had a list of everyone that had been enrolled on the Level 4 training but had not completed the course, so that they could ring each one and ask why they’ve dropped out and what can be done. Although this may not involve getting them to complete the Level 4 qualification at that stage, it might involve organizing a cross-credit for the Level 2 qualification to help them complete that more quickly and to encourage them to undertake the new Level 3 Certificate and eventually pursue a Level 4 qualification.

A longer-term aspiration was that the learning representatives would be able to see what other things people might like to learn and help to organise that. An example that was provided was that Maori or Pacific Island people may wish to undertake learning associated with their culture. Alternatively, it may be that people find sign language or computer skills as useful enhancements of their work skills that could be linked into vocational qualifications.

Organisation of learningInitial training towards the qualification will be delivered in a non-work situation at regular periods in somebody’s first twelve months of employment. People qualified and accredited as workplace assessors by the ITO will test to see whether people had reached the desired level of competence. There are some reservations within the New Zealand trade union movement that learning assessment may be incompatible with the role of learning representatives as facilitators of learning. But people were generally supportive of learning representatives at IDEA Services being trained to be assessors for the new Level 2 qualification because of the dispersed nature of the workplaces and the generally supportive nature of the work environment.

To overcome the dispersed nature of the community service workers’ employment situation in the delivery of other forms of learning, a full-time SFWU official has proposed the idea of learning buses as a mobile learning centre that could be located in a region at an equidistant point between some different workplaces, so people could learn together.

AchievementsLearning representatives had been too recent an innovation for there to be clear numbers of learners that they had helped through courses. There had been an initial identification of 225 people who would take the new Level 2 Certificate in Community Support. Nevertheless, the learning representative initiative has led to many achievements so far at IDEA Services. These included the following:

negotiation of the framework agreement for learning ❚

representatives to exist

negotiation of the learning representatives’ role ❚

learning representatives undertaking the initial ❚

training for learning representatives, including awareness of the skills of literacy, numeracy and English as a second language

learning representatives publicising their role to their ❚

membership.


Description As noted, the learning representative initiative is at an early stage of development in New Zealand, so other instances of learning representative activity are only just starting to emerge. This case study is taken from the retail and wholesale industries which is an important sector in the New Zealand economy employing over 350,000 workers. Around 80,000 of these workers are employed in the distribution areas of transport and storage. A key trade union involved in these areas is the national distribution union (NDU) which has over 20,000 members and is one of the biggest private sector unions in New Zealand. A key ITO in the area, the Retail Institute, has developed qualifications for both retail workers and distribution workers. The levels of qualification suitable for different grades of worker in distribution were explained by a respondent from the Retail Institute in the following terms:

“I would say your typical employee at Level 2 would be your warehouse picker and packer type person. A Level 3 would be your supervisor in the warehouse type and then obviously Level 4 you’re starting to get into the management area dealing more with the running of the place and having more responsibility for that particular outfit or department that you might be in, or even the whole enterprise.”(Retail Institute representative)

The Retail Institute was also seeking to develop resources to help with literacy. One respondent from the Retail Institute explained “we’ll be looking at … embedding literacy into all our resources that we develop … and of course measuring at the close to see what impact it’s had”.

As in other sectors of the New Zealand economy, the majority of units in retail and distribution are quite small, although there are some large companies. One of the largest companies in this sector is Progressive Enterprises Limited. As part of Australasian retail group Woolworths Ltd, the company holds approximately 42 percent of the New Zealand grocery market and employs 18,000 people throughout the country.

As well as having a number of distribution centres, Progressive Enterprises Limited also has more than 170 retail outlets throughout New Zealand. While a number of people in the company do have qualifications, many people are recruited to their position on the basis of enthusiasm and an eagerness to fill the position. Progressive Enterprises Limited was one of the first organisations in the sector to introduce learning representatives.

Background to the organisation of learningThe company’s enthusiasm for the learning representative initiative was attributed by others to a significant industrial dispute that had occurred between August and September 2006 over markedly disparate terms and conditions between workers employed at Progressive’s different distribution centres. The dispute involved distribution workers from the NDU and the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and had a detrimental impact on the public’s perception of the company which the company was seen to want to repair. Interviewees described this industrial action and its impact to us in different ways.

“The public support for the workers was enormous because it was cruel and it was a low, low paid group of people who were locked out until they agreed to a reduction in terms and the opinion of the public was just enormous … cash donations in the street… people coming in here giving money … particularly because it wasn’t a New Zealand owned outfit…” (Full time union official)

The NDU interviewees’ suggested that union density for the distribution workers at Progressive was exceptionally high, at nearly 100 per cent. The introduction of learning representatives at the company was seen as a way of rebuilding relationships after the dispute, not only with the strongly unionised distribution workers, but also with the local community:

New Zealand Case Study: Distribution

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“They (the company) see learning reps as having community connections which is great … largely Pacific Island staff, so therefore huge connections with church and the whole local community.”(Full time NDU union official)

Role of the learning representativesAt the time the research was conducted, the first six learning representatives had been introduced at Progressive Enterprises Limited and another six were in the process of being trained. The 12 learning representatives would cover around 300 workers employed at the company’s distribution centre in Auckland. An initial union concern was that the company had limited the number of learning representatives to 12, something the union felt needed to be challenged. However, initially the NDU had experienced some problems in getting people to volunteer for the learning representative role.

Although the content of the role was evolving, it was apparent that an important area would be literacy. One of the NDU interviewees pointed out that the illiteracy rate in certain parts of the distribution workforce is as high as 40-50 percent. This is also a workforce that is heavily populated by people for whom English is a second language, most notably Pacific Island employees. As one NDU organiser highlighted about the potential role that learning representatives could have at Progressive Enterprises Limited:

“That’s probably where learning reps could do a lot of good because English is a second language for a lot of them and there is a recognition that in a lot of distribution stores in general, people’s literacy skills aren’t up to scratch and the companies are screaming out for some training too.”(Union organiser)

There could be some scope in the future for learning reps to point workers in the direction of the materials that the Retail Institute were developing around literacy although the early stage of the development of learning representatives at the time of the research meant that

links had not been forged between individual learning representatives and the ITO to facilitate this. It was clear that despite the emergent nature of the learning representative role, individuals taking on that role would need to be relatively tactful individuals. They would need to talk about issues that people do not necessarily like talking about, namely educational levels and literacy needs; and to point those workers in the direction where they could get help around those issues. Clearly the company and the union are at an early stage in the development of the learning representative scheme, but by 2009 the number of learning representatives had increased and the programme was progressing well with what one trade union official described as “good employer support”.

There were some ideas within the NDU about how to expand the scheme beyond issues of literacy. One idea was to expand the focus and constituency for learning reps from distribution into the retail sector. This would be particularly relevant in the instance of a company such as Progressive Enterprises Limited which also own a large number of retail outlets as well as their distribution centres. While qualifications in the National Qualifications Framework already existed in both the areas of distribution and in retail, the company has been working with the Retail Institute, to develop qualifications in supermarket retailing in the National Qualifications Framework. A respondent at the Retail Institute saw some potential advantages from the introduction of learning representatives. He said:

“In one sense learning reps could do what is not existing at the moment and that is [provide] an employee voice in industry training”.(Retail Institute representative)

There were however, some barriers to the development of the learning representative initiative within the distribution and retail sector more generally. An ITO interviewee suggested that it was difficult at times to convince employers of the value of learning and training in an industry where there was relatively high labour turnover:


“It’s about getting those employers on board. Top-down they’ve got to recognise what it is they need to do to increase their productivity and not worry so much about training people that might leave”(Retail Institute representative)

The NDU interviewees also suggested that there were some initial problems with managers being suspicious of the initiative. Not so much those at the top of the organisation but “the ones that are about three places removed, they’re quite suspicious of the learning reps and they think we’re using it as a tool to undermine them but we’re not actually”. Another stated:

“I mean my assumption here with a lot of employers is anything that’s got an aroma of unionism, sometimes they’ll just oppose it. Things like we have funeral benefits for members which are very cheap and you get some employers just opposing it because it is seen as promoting the union. You probably get a little bit of that with the learning reps programme with the CTU involved – “This is just a plot by the unions!” … You know.”(Full-time NDU union official)

Organisation of learningDue to the early stage of the development of learning representatives, the arrangements for the organisation of learning were not yet fully established. However, many of the qualifications developed by the Retail Institute could be undertaken in the workplace. It was anticipated that workers would consult with the NDU learning representatives about what qualifications and learning opportunities were available and the learning representatives would advise them accordingly.

AchievementsThe initiative is at too early a stage of development for there to be marked progress, but the NDU had succeeded in progressing with the learning representative initiative at a number of organisations including Progressive Enterprises Limited. At the

company they had negotiated the existence of learning representatives and for those learning representatives to have time off to undertake the learning representative training. Moreover, the NDU national union officer was also in the process of raising the issue of additional resources that learning representatives might need to support their role.

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ULRs and learning representatives in the UK and New Zealand respectively have undertaken quite different responsibilities from their initial conception. While in the UK, there was an initial recognition that ULRs might facilitate learning that allowed personal development and broader career development, the focus in New Zealand was on facilitating the raising of general workplace-based skills to help promote the development of the economy. In the UK, many of the sectoral institutions that had previously helped to organise work-related learning had changed and did not have longevity whereas the ITOs in New Zealand had been longstanding. Although the potential partners for ULRs in activity were not to be found easily initially at a sectoral level in the UK, there has since been some useful work between trade unions and some sector skills councils, particularly in relation to developing sector skills agreements. It is too early to assess the level of ULR involvement in implementing these arrangements at the workplace. By contrast, the role of learning representatives in New Zealand may be seen as being defined in relation to what the long-standing ITOs were doing in the respective sectors.

This important difference between the UK and New Zealand may be seen when one considers the cases. In the UK cases, ULRs may be seen as working alongside – rather in direct partnership with – employers, pointing workers in the direction of employer-provided opportunities where learning related to their current role or an immediate promotion. At the same time, ULRs are opening up and facilitating new opportunities for learning that provides enhanced leisure interests, alternative vocational opportunities, alternative employment-seeking skills and personal development, including Skills for Life, such as foundation levels of literacy, numeracy, as well as information technology and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).

In New Zealand, the learning representative initiative is a more recent development, but learning representatives are starting to work in partnership with employers and other bodies, most particularly the ITOs, to open up job-related learning to a broader

range of people and to support those people while they obtain those qualifications. The provisions of the skills strategy and as one of the cases indicate they are also likely to have an important role in helping their fellow workers to enhance foundation levels of literacy, numeracy, information technology and ESOL.

It is interesting to consider the issue of the sustainability of the initiative in the two countries. In the UK, statutory support has been given to ULRs, whereas statutory support has not been provided to learning representatives in New Zealand. This raises the question of whether ULRs are more sustainable in the UK than learning representatives are in New Zealand. The important criterion in measuring the sustainability in both countries would be to consider the extent to which they have become embedded in the broader context. In both countries, there would be some grounds for optimism. The qualifications that ULRs/learning representatives undertake have been accredited within broader qualifications framework. In both countries, the responsibilities of ULRs/learning representatives have been recognised in different regulatory frameworks – in law in the UK and in collective employment agreements in New Zealand. In both countries, ULRs/learning representatives have been provided with some recognition in ongoing policies of government – for example, in the respective countries’ skills strategies. There is, thus, ongoing scope for trade unions to build on the important opportunities that they have been helping to open up to their members. In both countries it was evident that an important factor to sustaining the ULR/learning representative initiative was the commitment of the individual learning representatives to progressing learning within their organisations.

Discussion and conclusions


Table One: UK Interviewees

Case Role No. Interviews Total

Public sector UK National union learning officer 1 2 2

Public sector UK Union regional learning officer 1 2 2

Public sector UK Learning centre manager (ULR) 1 5 5

Public sector UK Local learning co-ordinator (ULR) 1 2 2

Public sector UK Learning representatives 6 1 6

Public sector UK Learners 5 1 5

Public sector UK Learning provider 1 1 1

Public sector UK Learning & development manager 1 1 1

Public sector UK TUC regional learning services 1 1 1

Manufacturing UK National learning officer 1 1 1

Manufacturing UK Union regional learning official 3 1 3

Manufacturing UK Learning provider 1 1 2 2

Manufacturing UK Learning provider 2 1 1 2

Manufacturing UK Learning centre manager (ULR) 1 3 3

Manufacturing UK Learning representatives 3 1 3

Manufacturing UK HR manager 1 1 1

Manufacturing UK Learners 5 1 5

Manufacturing UK TUC regional learning services 2 1 2

UK Union Learning Fund 1 1 1

UK TUC unionlearn 1 1 1

Total 38 30 49

Table Two: New Zealand IntervieweesCase Role No. Interviews TotalService NZ Trade union national official 1 1 1

Service NZ Learning organiser / LR 2 1 2

Service NZ Industrial training officers 3 1 3

Service NZ Learning representatives 5 1 5

Service NZ HR manager 1 1 1

Distribution NZ Trade union national official 2 1 2

Distribution NZ Trade union learning organiser 1 1 1

Distribution NZ Industrial training organisation officers 2 1 2

Department of Labour NZ Policy makers 2 1 2

Industrial Training Federation. NZ Industrial training officers 4 1 4

Council of Trade Unions NZ Learning co-ordinator 1 1 1

Tertiary Education Commission NZ Policy manager 1 1 1

Tertiary Education Commission NZ Outreach worker 1 1 1

Total 26 13 26

Appendix

28

Other research papers in the series

Paper 1Union learning, union recruitment and organising

By Sian Moore and Hannah Wood

Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

Paper 2 Organising to learn and learning to organise: Three case studies on the effects of union-lead workplace learning

By Chris Warhurst, Paul Thompson and Patricia Findlay

Scottish Centre for Employment Research, University of Strathclyde

Paper 3A collective learning culture: a qualitative study of workplace learning agreements

By Emma Wallis and Mark Stuart

Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change, University of Leeds Business School

Paper 4 Training, union recognition and collective bargaining: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey

By Mark Stuart and Andrew Robinson

Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change, University of Leeds Business School

Paper 5 From voluntarism to post-voluntarism: the emerging role of unions in the vocational education and training system

By Bert Clough

unionlearn

Paper 6 Estimating the demand for union-led learning in Scotland

By Jeanette Findlay, Patricia Findlay and Chris Warhurst

Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Strathclyde

Paper 7 Migrant workers in the labour market: the role of unions in the recognition of skills and qualifications

By Miguel Martinez Lucio, Robert Perrett, Jo McBride and Steve Craig

University of Manchester Business School and University of Bradford School of Management

Paper 8 Integrating union learning and organising strategies

By Sian Moore

Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

Paper 9 The impact of the union learning representative: a survey of ULRs and their employers

By Nicholas Bacon and Kim Hoque

Nottingham University Business School

All these research papers are free of charge and can be ordered by going to:

http://www.unionlearn.org.uk/policy/learn-1852-f0.cfm

30

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November 2009

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research paper 10 - learning representative initiatives in the uk and new zealand

Documents

new zealand case study

uk case study

union learning movement

union learning centres

learning representatives

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union learners