Lurching toward Professionalism: The Saga of Teacher Unionism

Abstract

Education reforms in the last decade show promise of producing a professional teacher unionism, one that collectively sets and enforces standards for teaching as well as one that represents teachers' economic and work conditions interests. Through the process of local action, teachers are redefining unionism in ways that depart from industrial work norms and authority patterns through such devices as joint committees, decentralized authority, peer review, and new forms of bargaining. However, enormous tensions remain. Teachers are still workers subject to coercion and exploitation. Their claims to authority based on special expertise are relatively weak, and thus, the boundaries of the profession are hard to define and defend. Finally, existing law and the institution of labor relations do not support professional redefinition, and without institutional patterning, professional unionism is unlikely to proceed very far very fast.