| This history shows how Boston's public school teachers struggled to form a union affiliated with organized labor, and eventually won. The narrative divides into three periods: 1919-26, 1936-45, and 1945-65. Each period tells the story of a particular union, or unions. In 1919 teachers organized four locals of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT): the Greater Boston Federation of Teachers, the Union of Boston Women Teachers (Elementary), the Union of Boston High School Women Teachers, and the Boston Federation of Men Teachers. By 1926 all four had failed. Another local formed in 1936, the Boston Federation of Teachers, and lasted until 1945 when a new local replaced it. The new local, the Boston Teachers Union, is the local that won the right to be the exclusive bargaining agent for Boston's teachers in 1965 and is currently active in the Boston Public Schools.;The teachers emerge from this story as a very diverse group. While some wanted to pressure the School Committee to make changes, others were content to let well-enough alone. Those who wanted to take power into their own hands were divided about how to do that. Three issues that kept them divided throughout the history were: (1) Should a teachers union affiliate with organized labor? (2) Who should be in the bargaining unit? and (3) What is the political role of the union? The first two issues were finally resolved with the establishment of the Boston Teachers Union as the exclusive bargaining agent in 1965. The third was not resolved then, and, according to union members, is still being struggled over.;The study grew out of and builds on concerns raised by the revisionist educational historians of the late 1960s. It contributes also to labor history, and, in that many of the unions' leaders and participants were women, to women's history. In conclusion it addresses issues about the role of organized teachers in effecting educational policy changes, and about the relationship of the division of labor at the workplace to workplace organizing.;Resources include newspaper accounts, union correspondence, and interviews with participants. Papers of the unions are housed in the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at the Walter P. Reuther Library on the Wayne State University campus in Detroit, Michigan. The first two historical periods depend on press accounts and union records, while interviews with union leaders augment the third. The narrative treats each period equally, focussing on the problems they share. The result is an outline of the teacher union movement in Boston in some detail for forty-six years, and an introduction to some of its dedicated leaders. |
