In August 1984, 17 months after the election of the Hawke Labor government and the start of the Accord process, the Metal Industry Unions through their national Award Negotiation Committee, presented to the government and the public its own comprehensive jobs-creating industry policy. The Report ran to 309 pages and was supported with supplementary leaflets, journal articles, media stories and pamphlets.

As National Secretary of the Metals Award Negotiation Committee, Laurie Carmichael laid out in the Foreword the independent and united union position for ongoing consultations with both the employers and the government.

CLICK HERE: Foreword to Metal Unions Report on Industry Development, 1984

We hope to post a link to the full report in the coming weeks.

The unions' research officers worked closely with a new network of state and regional research centres that operated voluntarily, in the main, to develop the content. In turn, these new centres - the Trans National Cooperative (Sydney), Hunter Workers Research Centre, Labor Research Centre (Melbourne), Wollongong Workers Research Centre, and the Labor Education and Research Group (Adelaide) - used the content to further develop their own local initiatives to defend and develop manufacturing industries against the neoliberal downgrading of manufacturing.