The subject of industrial relations is intimately connected with the nature of schooling - in particular, the teacher trade unions have played and will continue to play a crucial role in shaping the school system - yet this subject has been virtually neglected in educational literature. Mike Ironside and Roger Seifert's book redresses this balance and unravels the complex issues surrounding the employment and management of teachers. Recent changes in education have had massive implications for the way in which our education system is organised. In the light of recent events, this book questions who controls or ought to control schools, focusing on the government, Department of Education, LEA's, head teachers, school governors, parents and teaching unions. The authors argue that in order for schools to continue to function, industrial relations must be given priority, including the development of a proper framework for negotiation and the resolution of conflicts.

Collective bargaining in the public schools of the nation has its legal roots in the industrial labor model fashioned in the 1930s out of labor strife between union organizers and private businesses. This industrial union labor model was transplanted almost wholesale into the public sector over fifty years ago when teachers, fire and police personnel were granted the legislative right to collectively bargain their wages, benefits, and terms and conditions of employment in most states. What impact has this industrial model had on public education and on the relationship between teachers and administrators? Labor Relations in Education explores unions and collective bargaining in the public schools of America. The history of the laws, the politics of the response to collective bargaining and unions, and the practices of bargaining and managing a contract are explored in this volume. Changes that may move labor relations into professional relations and away from the industrial labor union model and diminish the schism that exists between educators are discussed. A fully developed simulation is included to employ the practices and concepts discussed in the book.

Interdisciplinary in approach and drawing not only on education research but also from the fields of industrial sociology, management studies and labour process theory, Industrial Relations in Education attempts to understand the reform agenda in relation to teachers, their professional identities and their experience of work by drawing on critical perspectives that seek to challenge orthodox policy discourses relating to remodelling.

The subject of industrial relations is intimately connected with the nature of schooling - in particular, the teacher trade unions have played and will continue to play a crucial role in shaping the school system - yet this subject has been virtually neglected in educational literature. Mike Ironside and Roger Seifert's book redresses this balance and unravels the complex issues surrounding the employment and management of teachers. Recent changes in education have had massive implications for the way in which our education system is organised. In the light of recent events, this book questions who controls or ought to control schools, focusing on the government, Department of Education, LEA's, head teachers, school governors, parents and teaching unions. The authors argue that in order for schools to continue to function, industrial relations must be given priority, including the development of a proper framework for negotiation and the resolution of conflicts.

This revised edition of Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice follows the approach established successfully in preceding volumes edited by Paul Edwards. The focus is on Britain after a decade of public policy which has once again altered the terrain on which employment relations develop. Government has attempted to balance flexibility with fairness, preserving light-touch regulation whilst introducing rights to minimum wages and to employee representation in the workplace. Yet this is an open economy, conditioned significantly by developing patterns of international trade and by European Union policy initiatives. This interaction of domestic and cross-national influences in analysis of changes in employment relations runs throughout the volume.