ABSTRACT
Teacher trade unions at the end of the period of Conservative Governments were politically marginalised and seemingly powerless to stop a wave of educational reforms that left teachers with deteriorating conditions of service and with less control over key elements of their work. Nevertheless, in organisational terms, teacher unions remained intact with levels of membership and density envied by unions in other sectors. After some initial coldness when fi rst in offi ce, New Labour offered them the prospect of engagement over workload issues, presenting them with an opportunity to reassess their oppositional strategies. As outlined earlier, the responses of the two main unions differed, symbolised by the signing, or otherwise, of the National Workload Agreement, and hence membership of the Social Partnership. Confronted with the recognition of their differing perspectives and trajectories, the possibility of merger and cooperation between the two largest unions, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), receded further. The aim of this chapter is to examine the present state of, and future prospects for, school sector industrial relations through the fi ndings at national, local and school levels presented in previous chapters. This multi-level analysis will also allow an examination of the affect of workforce remodelling on the state of the main teacher unions. One area of focus will be an attempt to understand the dynamics of teacher trade unionism and specifi cally whether they can be captured through the competing strategies of renewal, rapprochement and resistance.
