Organising Learning: informal workplace learning in a trade union campaign to organise private-sector child care workers

The modern workplace is often portrayed as one that is being released from the constraints of traditional work practices and rigid organisational structures. The introduction of new technology combined with flexibility in production and labour relations, and greater individual discretion over work processes have been key elements in managerial terminology that predicted new types of work and jobs for a new economy. It was argued that old fashioned, low-skill jobs would be replaced by high skill work requiring qualifications needing regular updating. An unstoppable growth in the number of knowledge workers would replace the declining number of routine jobs