New partnerships - New interests: An ethnographic investigation some of the effects of employer involvement in trade union education

The head gangman in the Swedish building trade is a worker elected organiser in a gang comprising between about 4 and 16 workers and an 'on-site' and trained representative of the trades union. In 2002 the employer association for the building industry in Sweden (BI) and the Swedish Building and Allied Trades Union (SBATU) signed a joint agreement regarding the training of union officers for this function. Officially the aim was to improve the quality of training by including input from the industrial organisation in respect of production planning and economics. As part of the agreement the regional offices of the union were to inform the local industrial organisation about course content and delivery and discuss with them the individual education plans for individual employees from local firms. A second part involved representatives from BI working inside union courses in the training of union functionaries. The present article concerns the second part of the agreement. One course at one regional union site is focused in particular. Ethnography was used. The ethnographic details of the course provide some suggestions regarding the questions of how and in whose or what interests the developments brought about through the new partnership in union education operate.