Is Teachers’ Collective Bargaining Dead (and Does It Matter)? A Global, North-South Teacher Union Perspective

• In Event: International Perspectives on Teacher Identity

Abstract

A defining feature of labor unions is an engagement in collective bargaining, and teacher unions have become increasingly dependent on collective bargaining processes to pursue their objectives. However, across the world teacher union involvement in collective bargaining is under attack. This symposium adopts an international outlook to analyse current developments in teacher bargaining. Contributors, both academic and activist, with evidence from North and South, will outline the particular experiences of different national contexts, and explore the implications for the future of teacher unionism both in specific contexts, and more widely. How do teacher unions respond to an environment in which the challenge to collective bargaining processes results in the marginalisation, and sometimes the elimination, of formal and traditional bargaining mechanisms?

Authors

• Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Larry Kuehn, British Columbia Teachers' Federation

• Howard Stevenson, The University of Nottingham

• Mary Compton, National Union of Teachers

• Karen Lewis