Internet training in trade unions: a comparison of four European confederations

The paper draws on the evaluation activities of a European transnational Internet training programme involving trade union confederations and other worker education organisations. Three complementary views of the role of ICT in worker education are identified and discussed: the Internet as a topic of training; the Internet as a tool for delivering training; and the Internet in the mediation of changing relationships between union education and organisation. There is no inevitable progression through these views of the Internet: the outcomes of Internet use are dependent on a range of interacting influences that are likely to result in a diversity of patterns of Internet use.