Political Activism and Workplace Industrial Relations in a UK Failing School

Abstract

This paper explores the dynamics of workplace unionism in an inner-city comprehensive school characterised as failing and ultimately closed down. Recent and continuing educational change and the nature of industrial relations in the education sector set the context. The focus of the paper is on the way that local activists influence, resist and challenge the managerial processes during the period of failing and then closing. In particular, the paper allows a consideration of the influence of local activism, the link with political activists and the tension between workplace relations and formal union organisation.