Using a reduced form version of a theoretical expansion of Hoxby's (1996) education production model, we investigate whether bargaining teachers unions are a boon or a bust to the economy of the state. We anticipate teachers, being in the public sector veiled from competition, are less likely to be efficient. Yet, their product, education,…

The publication of "Learning Through Life," the main report of the Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, has been welcomed across the trade union movement. It offers a useful and useable framework for discussing the learning needs of people through the different stages of life and makes compelling suggestions about how to adjust…

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…