Regional Union Response to Regional Restructuring: A Case Study of Union Agency

Abstract

The article examines how a regional peak union council is structured in its response to regional restructuring. It focuses on an Australian regional peak union council, the South Coast Labour Council (SCLC), which pursued a goal of local employment generation from 1983 to 1996. The SCLC is based in the Illawarra region on the east coast, south of Sydney in the state of New South Wales. Its operations are centred on the city of Wollongong and Port Kembla, where the region’s economic activity is focused. The region had experienced unemployment greater than the state and national averages through the 1980s and 1990s. The article demonstrates how the SCLC’s structure allows it to perform its role as an agent of exchange with governments and employers, and thereby attempts to shape the political and industrial environment in which it resides. At the same time, the environment, in terms of government and employer policy and regional need, shapes the SCLC with it becoming involved with local employment generation.

Trade unions and industrial regeneration in North West Tasmania: Moving beyond lock-in?

“…It is often through regional trades and labour councils that unions become involved in these processes. These actors can broaden the range of issues considered and influence public policy in a direction that is more sympathetic to particular local concerns and lead to a process of renewal and revitalisation (Connelly et al., 2004; Ibsen and Tapia, 2017; Pike et al., 2002, 2007; Rittau, 2005). The challenge for trade unions is how to insert themselves in this process.…”

Industrial Agency in Regional Trades and Labour Councils

“…This significant theorization of peak union body roles and activities has been used in recent literature on regional trades and labour councils (RTLCs) (see e.g. Bailey, 2006; Ellem and Shields, 2004a; Markey and Nixon, 2003; Rittau, 2005).…”