This article considers critical accountants’ potential contribution to progressive reforms by examining how trade unions transformed workplace accountability relationships and developed social accounts as part of a workplace learning initiative. The article develops and utilizes the concept of facilitative reforms to interpret the advances brought by learning representative initiatives and accompanying changes in broader civil society, workplace relationships and social accounts in the UK and New Zealand. The article finds that the experience of the learning representative initiatives suggests that critical accountants’ support of facilitative reforms may sometimes be a fruitful strategy.