Time's Up for TUTA—a Corporatist Casualty

Abstract

The Australian Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA) had, by 1983, established itself as a major training and information resource, generally trusted and supported by unions. It had achieved this by adopting a full range of adult education principles that ensured a flexibility of approach that not only catered for the diverse needs of unions, but appeared to satisfy even the Fraser Government. This situation changed dramatically after the signing of the Accord Agreement and the election of the Hawke Government. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) actively intervened in the operations of TUTA, including its curriculum, methodology and structure, in order to mould TUTA into its neo-corporatist Accord strategy. This meant changing TUTA's ‘independent educational’ image to one of a ‘partisan’ promoter of the Accord and its processes. Whilst it is accepted that the ACTU's strategy in respect to TUTA may have been valid and imperative in the circumstances, this paper argues that it was this changed use of TUTA by the ACTU and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) government that ensured that TUTA would not survive when, and if, the Coalition won power federally. The paper examines how significantly TUTA changed during the Accord years and suggests that there are some useful lessons to be considered from the TUTA story.