ABSTRACT
The teachers' union was formed in 1916 by leaders of the progressive education movement, whose illustrious numbers included John Dewey and George Counts. The renewed political awareness of teachers was essential in achieving one of the great political events in the history of public employee collective bargaining: the merger of the state teacher association and the state union. A political group and then a depoliticized labor union, teachers became repoliticized during the late 1960s. Decentralization was the catalyst for the repoliticization of New York City teachers. Anti-education and anti-public employee union proposals are multiplying rapidly in this era of high taxes and low earnings. Repoliticizing the bargaining process may well lead to the demise of collective bargaining in the public sector. Bargaining by most federal employees, for whom a strike is a crime, is further from the organizational model of traditional collective bargaining.
