KEY POINTS:
Te Wananga o Aotearoa and Unite Union have done a deal that will put the union's name in lights on top of the former head office of the Auckland Savings Bank.
The deal brings wananga tutors and union organisers into the heart of Queen St to teach literacy, computing and business skills to some of the country's lowest-paid workers - cleaners, call centre workers, fast-food attendants and waiting staff.
Their new premises on the corner of Queen St and Wellesley St, opened by Prime Minister Keith Holyoake in 1969 as the headquarters of the savings bank (now ASB Bank), will become "Unite House".
The state-funded wananga is providing free tuition with computers students can take home during a 36-week computing course.
Its three classrooms will help Unite to rent a floor and a half of the building, and Unite's recruitment of the worker-students will help the wananga keep costs low.
Wananga regional manager George Ngatai said that if the scheme worked, the wananga would look to similar arrangements with unions in the rest of the country.
"With a lot of the students, this is the first time they have ever been involved in a tertiary institution because of the fear of getting involved with a mainstream tertiary institution," he said.
Beth Down, a waitress at the Ascott Metropolis who was sitting in front of a computer for only the second time yesterday, said she had never touched one until the union offered the free course.
"During school and that I was not that good. I left school early," she said.
"When this came up and there was no money involved, I thought, why not give it a go? You have time afterwards to stay on in your own time with someone to ask when you need help. You walk out of here powerful - you feel good."
Irene Lauronilla, a Filipina waitress who has worked at Sky City for four years, said she had learned how to use a computer for work but had never had a chance to do a proper course.
"This is my first time to know step by step as a course and it's great," she said.
Unite organising director Matt McCarten said the union surveyed its members and found skills training was in the top three things that members wanted.
"I did a bit of an informal survey amongst cleaners and found that a third of them are illiterate even in their own language. They don't feel confident to apply for other jobs because of their illiteracy," he said.
All worker-students are doing the courses in their own time so far, but Mr McCarten hopes to persuade employers to release them for classes in paid time.
"If they are all doing the course together - and a lot of the courses are a year long - that will lower the turnover on their work sites."
Te Wananga o Aotearoa
* Founded in Te Awamutu 1983.
* Fulltime-equivalent students peaked at 34,000 in 2003.
* Placed under Crown manager and financial audit ordered in 2005.
* Home-based "Kiwi Ora" course teaching new migrants about NZ axed by Tertiary Education Commission 2006.
* Fulltime-equivalent students now about 19,000.
