IRALE came into being after a Swazi Workers’ School that was organized and hosted by the Development Institute for Training/ Support and Education for Labour (DITSELA) in Johannesburg in 2005 in support of the labour movement of Swaziland. One of the principal objectives of this activity was to create space for potential unity amongst workers and their organisations in Swaziland/ and this was viewed to be harnessed through action and common programmes. One of these common programmes and areas of collective action was the issue of improved service delivery to workers. 

The improved service delivery was in turn considered to be the cornerstone of the work of improved worker representation in the workplace/ enhanced overall service delivery to members and improved collective bargaining procedures to benefit trade unions and their members/ in and out of the workplace. However/ some bottlenecks were identified to be frustrating the efforts to have such interventions mentioned above in place. Central of these challenges were the issues of the absence of relevant information to back up negotiation and other collective bargaining limitations. 

In addition/ the continued absence of relevant labour education to members and leaders of union renders these organisations incapable of effectively discharging their duties on an on-going basis. This is the broad bases that gave rise to the need for endorsement for an institution that will solely be responsible for providing labour research and education/ with an intention of capacity-building and support to these trade unions. 

It was in this very meeting where representatives from the various Swazi trade unions from the two defunct national centres, the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFL) and the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT)j agreed that there is need to develop an institution that will deal with issues of research and education for labour. This gave the bases for the development of the International Research Academy for Labour (lRALE)/ otherwise known as the Swaziland Labour Academy.