Organising teaching: Developing the power of the profession
different policy levels. Rather, this study’s focus on building from the base is premised on the simple principle that union influence depends ultimately on building the capacity, commitment, and confidence of individual members to act collectively. Clearly, union strength derives from the ability to work at multiple levels in any education system, and to be able to assert influence at all these levels. For example, Education International (EI) has been a key sponsor of the International Summits of the Teaching Profession (ISTP). The authors see the ISTPs as an essential way in which teacher unions can participate in global discourse and seek to reframe the narratives relating to equity and improved outcomes for all (Education International, 2017). Another example of this is the ‘Unite for Quality Education and Leadership’ Conference, convened by EI in Rotterdam in May 2017. Both of these initiatives provide important examples of how, at a global level, teachers’ organisations are seeking to ‘change the conversation’ (Sahlberg, 2017). This report argues that a renewed union movement seeks to connect unions across these multiple levels for unions to act as the authentic voice of the teaching profession, they must make these connections locally, nationally, and globally. Four features of union renewal are identified in this report, starting from basic instrumental issues and extending to more complex frameworks that seek to fuse teachers’ professional and union identities: • Increasing union membership • Increasing member involvement and participation in union structures and activities • Developing the skills and capacities of members, as both professionals and activists, through professional learning and member education • Developing ‘unionateness’ – the alignment of teachers’ professional identity and union membership such that they may be considered as indivisible. As one Irish teacher commented in a previous study (Stevenson, 2014) – ‘Frankly, I couldn’t be more involved [in the union] if I tried. It is part and parcel of my professional identity.’ Within industrial relations literature, the term ‘unionateness’ has several meanings (Gall, 2012; Prandy et al., 1974). Commonly, it refers to the extent to which an organisation displays the ‘classic’ features of a labour union: Is the union part of a labour federation? Does it engage in collective bargaining? Do members take industrial action? In this study, the term is applied to individual teachers to describe the extent to which they feel a connection with their union. Are teachers members of the union? Do they engage in union policy-making/democratic structures? Are they involved in union-organised activities and action? A sense of ‘unionateness’ is most likely to develop when teachers see the union as inseparable from their professional aspirations, broadly defined. Put another way, engagement with the union is considered indispensable in order for any teacher to be the teacher they want to be, working in the education system they want to work in. This requires teachers to recognise the importance of their own agency and to have the confidence to assert it. Teacher unions have a key role to play in developing this type 9