The bigger picture

The political question of how skilled labour is organised, recognised, and valued is one of the oldest political questions in any society. Pre-industrial communities had craft traditions embedded in religious, kinship, and community frameworks. The medieval European guild was a political institution that regulated who could practise which trade, who was admitted as an apprentice, and who profited from skilled labour. The transformation of trades work into industrial-era waged labour, contested across generations, is a political settlement that continues to reach contemporary trades.

The American oral historian Studs Terkel documented in his book Working how trades workers across mid-twentieth-century America understood their own labour, their relationship to clients, and the political conditions of their work. The political argument was that trades work carried political dignity and political knowledge that the wider economy systematically undervalued. The argument reaches Australian trades through the political conversation about apprenticeship, about trade respect, and about the political conditions of skilled work.

The American political economist Harry Braverman documented how the political project of industrial capitalism systematically deskilled trades work over the twentieth century. The political argument was that the conversion of skilled labour into managed processes operated as a political project, contested by trades workers and their unions across generations. The analysis reaches Australian trades through the political conditions of factory-line manufacturing, of franchise trades businesses, and of the political contest about right-to-repair and manufacturer technology control.

The colonial transfer

Trades in colonial Australia inherited British political settlements about apprenticeship, journeyman work, and trade union organisation. The British political tradition of formal apprenticeship, of indentured trade training, of the political relationship between master and apprentice, was transmitted into Australia largely intact.

What that political vision excluded is part of the history. First Nations craft traditions, developed over millennia and including significant material practice, were not recognised as trades by the colonial Australian system. The political project of barring First Nations workers from many skilled trades until well into the twentieth century did political work that continues to reach contemporary trades.

The political conditions of women in trades were significantly constrained. Women's exclusion from most trades through formal apprenticeship rules, union membership rules, and workplace culture operated as a political project, with consequences for who was welcomed onto sites and what the workforce composition could be. The political achievement of opening trades to women, ongoing across the past several decades, has been the work of sustained political contest.

The unionisation political achievement

The political achievement of trade unions in Australia was significant. The eight-hour day, won initially by the building trades in Melbourne in 1856, was a political achievement that reached far beyond the trades. The political conditions of trade qualification, of award wages, of safety standards on building sites and in workshops, were political achievements of decades of trade union organising. 

The unionisation achievement was a political contest, won through specific organising and contested at every stage. The political legacy of these achievements continues to shape Australian trades, even where union membership has declined.

The post-war political settlement extended trade union influence. The political conditions of apprentice training, of TAFE, of the political relationship between government, industry, and unions in trade education, were established through this period. The political legacy continues to shape contemporary apprentice pipelines.

The neoliberal turn

From the 1980s, a different political settlement began to assert itself in Australian trades. Award restructuring, the introduction of enterprise bargaining, the rise of franchise trades businesses, and the political pressure on trade unions reshaped what trades work was politically.

The political legacy is significant. The political conditions of contemporary apprentice pipelines, the political contests about retention, about pay, about workplace culture, all reflect this political settlement. Trade businesses operating today work inside conditions established by political decisions made decades ago.

The political project of expanding migrant labour in some trades, accelerating from the 2000s, produced political conditions that intensified after the federal compliance attention on migrant worker exploitation began in the mid-2010s.

The housing-political crisis

The political conversation about housing in Australia has reshaped what trades workers do, what they earn, and what political pressure they absorb. The housing-political crisis is reaching trades through workforce shortage, through demand intensity, through political pressure on apprentice training, and through the political contest about who is welcomed onto sites.

The housing-political crisis operates as a political moment, not a market cycle. The political settlement on housing, on workforce, on training pipeline, is being renegotiated, and trades workers are visible actors in the renegotiation.

The present moment

The housing-political crisis, the climate transition, and the political contest about workforce composition are reshaping trades now. 

The housing-political crisis is intensifying through the 2020s, with political pressure on apprentice intake, on trade wage settlements, and on the political conditions of who is welcomed into the workforce.

The climate transition is reshaping what particular trades do and where the work is. Electricians, plumbers, and other trades sit at the centre of the residential and commercial energy transition, with political consequences for training, demand, and apprenticeship.

The political contest about women in trades, queer and trans tradies, and First Nations workers is intensifying through workplace harassment standards, procurement requirements, and sustained political organising. The trades workforce of the next twenty years will be politically reshaped by the contests being fought now.