In 2005 the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, the central organisation of unions in New Zealand, initiated a Learning Representatives Project based on the British model. The Government approved an eight-month programme to be funded through its Tertiary Education Commission to "scope the project". Work began not just on scoping, but on building support from unions and industry for the project. The scoping phase was sufficient to indicate to government that the project was viable. The next step was a two-year pilot programme that was launched in July 2005 by the Minister of Education at a function at parliament with special guest Judith Swift from the British union learning representative programme. Although still at an exploratory stage, the project was expected to be running effectively in a selection of enterprises and industries by June 2007. That target was achieved in terms of number or representatives and number of worksites but in no way was the project embedded in the work practices of participating companies or even in the organising plans of unions. Whilst on the surface the Learning Representatives (LR) Project is about simple issues related to employee access to training and knowledge of training opportunities, in fact the project challenged, and continues to challenge, management practices, workplace cultures, the design of jobs and the design of work. In this article, the author attempts to describe those challenges and the context in which they arise. (Contains 1 table.)