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Australia: Teacher Union Resistance to the Impacts of Marketised and Neoliberal Restructurings: The More than Thanks campaign by the New South Wales Teachers Federation
Book chapter

Australia: Teacher Union Resistance to the Impacts of Marketised and Neoliberal Restructurings: The More than Thanks campaign by the New South Wales Teachers Federation

Aspa Baroutsis and Bob Lingard
Education and the Politics of Interruption: Does the Right Always Win?, pp.82-99
Routledge
22/12/2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003582564-5

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Abstract

The chapter outlines the “More than Thanks” campaign conducted by the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF) in Australia in response to the challenges faced by teachers and the management of the public school system under neoliberal policies, privatization, and public managerialism. These challenges included intensified workloads due to task decentralization to schools, accountability modes based on testing, and stagnant wages in the face of rising living costs, a consequence of the cap imposed by the conservative New South Wales government on salary increases for all public sector workers. The campaign, supported by a strong research base, employed communication/media, policy, and industrial strategies, achieving various successes such as strengthening and educating union members, increasing community support for teachers and their demands, breaking the government-imposed salary cap, and defeating the conservative 11-year government in New South Wales elections. This then led to the election of a Labor Party government with policies more aligned with the union’s demands regarding teacher pay and working conditions. The campaign also inspired other public sector workers in New South Wales, such as nurses and firefighters, to adopt the “More than Thanks” motto in their own campaigns.

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