Political Activism and Workplace Industrial Relations in a UK ‘Failing’ School
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00263 |
Political Activism and Workplace
Industrial Relations in a UK ‘Failing’
School
Moira Calveley and Geraldine Healy
Abstract
The paper draws on a qualitative case study of workplace industrial relations in
an inner-city secondary school identified as ‘failing’ and subsequently closed. It
considers the way unionized teachers and their representatives interpret, influence
and resist the impact of centralized managerial and educational change. The
local implementation of such change leads to an engagement with the debates
on union renewal. In particular, the paper explores the dynamic interrelation-
ship between political and trade union activism and the tension between work-
place relations and formal union organization.
1. Introduction
The paper explores the relationship between trade union activists, their
members and their union in ‘Parkville’,
1
a UK inner-city secondary school,
identified as ‘failing’ and subsequently closed. The impact of new managerial-
ism on workplace activism is considered showing how decentralized manage-
ment initiatives inflamed industrial relations tensions at school level, how
teachers collectively resisted new managerialism, and, importantly, how this
resistance was fuelled by a local union activist, also a political activist. By
engaging with the union renewal debate, the paper draws attention to the
neglected link between trade union activism and political activism, and in
this context revisits the uneasy relationship between unions as representative
organizations and as oligarchies. Finally, the extent to which conditions in
the school promote or hinder union renewal, resilience and, as it emerges,
degrees of retreat is explored.
The paper is set against the backdrop of radical educational reform in
England and Wales. The 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA) introduced
Moira Calveley and Geraldine Healy are in the Employment Studies Research Unit, The
Business School, University of Hertfordshire.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
41:1 March 2003 0007–1080 pp. 97–113
#Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
‘centralized decentralization’ (Hoggett 1996: 18) into education through
centralized curriculum control and a devolved system of management through
the local management of schools (LMS). LMS has created a managerial role
for headteachers, with responsibility for financial and human resources
devolved to local school managers from the local education authority
(LEA). This shift to what has become known as ‘new managerialism’ is well
documented, but its interrelationship with industrial relations in teaching at
the workplace level is less so (exceptions include Healy 1997; Ironside and
Seifert 1995; Sinclair et al. 1996). However, other studies in the public sector
have suggested that decentralization to local management may be an
important catalyst for union renewal (Fairbrother 2000a; Thornley 1998).
New managerialism has changed the nature and balance of teachers’ work
and, unsurprisingly, has been met with criticism as ‘professionality is
replaced by accountability, collegiality by costing and surveillance’ (Ball
1994). Public accountability has also been introduced through school league
tables,
2
the rhetoric of which is to identify ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools. Schools
at the top of the ‘league’ have both pupils and staff competing to enter them,
while those at the bottom face under-subscription and possible closure, thus
subjecting schools to ‘market mechanisms’ (Sinclair et al. 1996: 641). This
division between schools was reinforced by New Labour’s publicly targeting
under-performing schools to raise standards; the practice, since rescinded,
was known as ‘Naming and Shaming’.
These changes took place in the context of a profession which is character-
ized by high union density. Competitive multi-unionism is entrenched with
teachers organized in six unions ranging from the more militant National
Union of Teachers (NUT), National Association of Schoolmasters and
Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), to the anti-strike Professional
Association of Teachers (PAT). As John Kelly asserts, teachers display a
wide range of political orientations (Kelly 1998: 138). This is evident in the
choice of union and the contestations between factions within unions,
manifesting itself at the national and, of relevance to this paper, local level
through the influence of activists.
2. Activism, political factions and trade unions
The importance of local union leadership to workplace union activity is well
documented (Darlington 1994, 1998, 2001; Fosh 1993; Greene et al. 2000)
and is a recurrent theme in the debates on union renewal. Indeed, according
to Fosh, ‘the possibility for union renewal comes through building up the
base level of participation by careful local leadership so that members can
more easily be encouraged to take part in collective activities in times of
necessity’ (Fosh 1993: 577). Similarly, Fairbrother (1994, 1996) suggests
that, despite the recent trend of decline in union membership, as manage-
ment initiatives have been devolved to the local level and ‘more participative
forms of unionism’ (1996: 141) have emerged there is a possibility for union
98 British Journal of Industrial Relations
#Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003.
To continue reading
Request your trial