I presented these ideas at a fringe meeting at the NUT Conference, March 2013. At the meeting I did not use this slideshow, but have placed it here for a reference for those who attended, and as a way of continuing the discussion.

1. Social movement unionism:
connecting ideas and activism
Howard Stevenson
STA/CDFU meeting
NUT Conference, Liverpool
31st March 2013

2. This presentation . . .
. . . is a work in progress. The ideas are currently being
developed – and will appear in an article later this year.
This slideshow was not used at the meeting, but has been
posted because time at the meeting was limited and this
is a way of rounding out some of the ideas I presented
there. If you were at the meeting, I am hoping the slides
make sense to you . . . (?)
If you are reading this, and you weren’t at the meeting, I
still hope the slides will make sense to you . . . I’m just
less confident about that . . . (!)

3. Basic premises . . .
• Changes that challenge established sources of power
require movements.
• Movements emerge from the coinciding of events
(opportunity) and conscious organising (agency)
• Opportunity + agency = mobilisation = change
(or put another way, to create a movement requires a
mobilisation, and mobilisations require organising .
. .)

4. The language of social movement
unionism . . .
• Community
• Parents
• Alliances
• Coalitions
My theme is connections . . .

5. Connecting the past to the present –
the significance of 1987 . . .
• The 1987 ‘Great Education Reform Bill’ (later the 1988
Education Reform Act)
– ‘a subtle set of linked measures are to be relied on to have the
desired effect – that is to push the whole system towards a
degree at least, of privatisation, establishing a base which could
be exploited later’ (Brian Simon – writing in 1987)
• Abolition of teachers’ national negotiating rights
The two issues are linked . . . in order to achieve the aims of
the 1988 Act (privatisation) it is first necessary to weaken
teachers’ collective power, ie the teacher unions (but in order
to weaken the power of teacher unions it is necessary to
fragment and privatise – the process is iterative and therefore,
inevitably, a long term project)

6. The determination of the New Right to
‘face down’ teachers (and their unions)
"The structural change is we've got to bust open the state monopoly on
education and allow new schools to be established. It's what's happened in
Sweden, in parts of America it's hugely successful in terms of making sure
there's excellence, there's competition, there's innovation and new excellent
schools come along. It's a big chance. It will mean some big battles with
forces of resistance. Some LEAs might not like it, some of the education
establishment won't like it.”
“There are forces in the education establishment that have to be taken on
and defeated on this.”
David Cameron, Daily Telegraph interview (6/2/2009)
The ‘big battle’ is first and foremost a battle of ideas . . . it is a political struggle. There
is therefore a need for a type of unionism that connects immediate struggles with
wider questions of political alternatives.

7. Identifying the trigger . . . where does the
search for alternatives begin? – the contribution
of mobilisation theory
‘Mobilisations’ are most likely when . . .
1. People feel a keen sense of injustice (there is a
clear grievance – see earlier slide about the
importance of opportunity)
2. There exists a belief that the injustice can be
remedied by somebody (employer, corporation,
government), ie there is a realisable solution
3. Participants believe that their action can bring
about the pressure necessary to secure the
solution (confidence)

8. Synthesising social movement unionism and
mobilisation theory: making connections
• Social movement unionism = trade unionism
within and beyond the union (the core
connection)
• Requires organising connections – expressed as 3
dimensions . . .
1. National and local (teachers = individual schools)
2. Immediate and long term
3. Industrial and political (teachers = ‘professional
issues’/policy)

9. Social movement unionism:
the organising connections
Industrial Political
National
Long term
Workplace
Immediate
Not ‘either/or’ . . . the challenge is to connect both aspects of each dimension
The key element in all . . . is organising strategy

10. Learning lessons from Chicago?
Address current organising weaknesses . . .
1. Develop stronger workplace organisation (needs to be linked to
opportunities – sometimes national, but often workplace, based)
2. Establish medium and long term objectives (the need for patience
in some circumstances – direction of travel is key, trajectory needs
to be upward)
3. Organise around ideas (the importance of counter-narrative and
campaigning for, rather than always campaigning against – the
latter an important starting point, but more powerful when a
campaign against develops into a campaign for).
The union’s lay and activist base is the key link in all these connections .
..

11. Final thoughts . . .
• ‘The dictatorship of no alternative cannot be
overthrown without ideas.’ (Fielding and Moss, 2011)
• ‘Ideas alone are insufficient, but activism
without an alternative is merely opposition.’
(www.howardstevenson.org)
• ‘For the privatisers to prevail, what is required
more than anything, is for those who seek to
defend a democratic, public education to do
nothing.’ (Stevenson and Wood, forthcoming)

12. Connecting ideas and activism . . .
Carry on the debate here . . .
http://howardstevenson.org/2013/03/31/social-
movement-unionism-connecting-ideas-and-
activism/