English Teachers’ Unions in the Early 21st Century :What Role in a Fragmented World ?

• Main Author: Anne Beauvallet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines 2014-12-01
• Series: Revue LISA
• Subjects: teachers’ union; membership; militancy; industrial action; working condition; pay
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/7108

The National Union of Teachers (NUT), National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and Voice are the largest organisations representing English state school teachers. The NUT and NASUWT have shared many characteristics such as their militancy, whereas the ATL and Voice have rather adopted moderate strategies. The two largest organisations, the NUT in particular, were undoubtedly influential until the late 1970s, but they were not all-powerful. Education policies have since radically altered the profession and thus made these unions’ mission more difficult. Such a predicament has been worsened by their divisions in ideological and strategic terms. Confrontation and collaboration with the government have been tried with mixed results, all the more so as the NUT, NASUWT, ATL and Voice have so far been unable to generate an alternative discourse and thus counter the prevailing neoliberal ideology.