Trade unions - development actors or victims: A case study from North West Tasmania

Trade unions face many challenges, and in the context of deindustrialisation and regeneration the challenge is to become part of the process of economic and social revival. In the main the literature on this subject has focused on the conditions for involvement. Here attention is given to the way trade unions may be marginalised in these circumstances and why. Through an examination of the last decade in the North West Tasmanian region, we explore the ways in which such policies are developed in ways that marginalise the trade unions in the area. The result is partially developed proposals and responses. Part of the problem is that unions have first to address their own resources and capacities, if they are to become actors in these processes. Otherwise, workers become objects within this process, with the dangers that a state and employer led regeneration will lay the foundations for union marginalisation and emerging pockets of poverty and inequality within regions.