Organising teaching: Developing the power of the profession
SEVEN CHALLENGES FOR TEACHER UNION RENEWAL The seven country case studies above described teacher unions’ actions in the context of the political, economic, and historical forces in which they operate. Having spent some time with each union, the authors developed a better understanding of the magnitude of challenges they face and, in many cases, their ability to respond effectively to those challenges. The unions studied worked on different fronts: allying with government or employers when appropriate, resisting neoliberal education reforms in a multiplicity of ways when possible, and devoting time and resources to forging their own ways forward. When these case studies are considered as a group, it is evident that teacher union renewal rests upon the extent to which union members’ engagement is fundamental to the vitality of those organisations. Attending simultaneously to their own members while interacting with external organisations is what teacher unions do, but there can be no influence at the higher levels of policy development and enactment without paying attention to how the union is built from the base. Teacher unions can only thrive by paying attention to how they grow from within. Outlined below are the elements integral to teacher union renewal as informed by the seven case studies developed for this research.
1) Organise around ideas: Reframe the narrative This report has chronicled teacher unions’ focus on protecting teacher autonomy and the pay and working conditions of their members. However, it is important to recognise that attacks on teachers’ working conditions, broadly defined, are located within a broader ideological attack on public education. Global managerial educational reform challenges the fundamental values on which public education systems have been built. The real danger is that this construct begins to frame our world views. Such narratives set the parameters that determine how problems are defined and solutions conceived. In the current context, for example, society is often led to believe that the private sector is ‘more efficient’ or ‘more accountable;’ private is ‘good’ and public is ‘bad.’ It is important to recognise that the details of this discourse look different in different contexts but, regardless of context, there is an urgent need for teacher unions to be able to articulate with clarity the international teacher unions’ vision of ‘quality public education for all.’ This study offers several examples of unions doing this work, often in very different circumstances (largely defined by state-teacher relationships). The authors also refer readers to the work of the Alberta Teachers’ Association with the 55