Abstract:

Background. A person has to work at least for daily needs in the life. On the other hand, during the working life, a person wants to be treated respectfully by the others as well as to get a social status (Tok, 1996). Human being as a social entity tends to live in social groups in which every person has a social function. In today's societies, people need support in solving problems emanating from some strong social organizations like political, religious, or professional entities (Bursalıoğlu, 1991, 53). As a result, the varieties and numbers of professional organizations or unions show an increasing tendency toward becoming power player in the society. Teaching earned its legal professional status in 1924 with the secondary school teachers' law. Later on, Basic National Education Law identified teaching as a profession in 1973. These laws classified teachers under civil servant class as well as describing their duties in schools. In passing years, the social status of teachers has declined in Turkey. A research conducted by Boyacı (1994) 87% of teachers support the teacher unions but the percentage of active members teachers to the unions is around 32%. When this percentage is compared to the percentage of teachers supporting the unions, it could be said that this is less than expected. According to the data provided by the provincial education directorate, in the province of Uşak, the number of teachers and other workers working in schools was 3850 during 2005-2006 school year. The number of teachers who are the members of unions in Uşak Province was 2255 and their percentage was around 58.5% which was higher than the national average of 32%. This discrepancy and a relatively low membership in teacher unions provides a rational for examining teachers' attitudes towards unions. Purpose. The purpose of this research was to explore the attitudes of the elementary school teachers and school administrators (principal and assistant principals) toward teacher unions. Method. The population of this study consists of the classroom teachers and administrators who were working in primary schools of the province of Uşak. The sample of the study selected with stratified sampling method and consisted of 286 elementary school teachers and 59 administrators in Usak. To collect the data related to the attitudes toward teacher unions, a pilot study was conducted. In the pilot study, open-ended questions related to unions were asked to 50 teachers. Based on responses a Likert-type survey instrument was employed to those teachers. In the final phase, after some item analyses, the instrument was was finalized containing 35 statements and five-sub-scales. Statistically, the reliability of the scale was found 0.91 as the Cronbach α co-efficient. Independent t-test and one-way variance of analysis was used to test the null hypothesis of the study and the Tukey's b test was employed for post-hoc comparisons. Results and discussion. Some of the most important reasons that teachers establish teacher unions are seem to be the protection of teacher rights and finding some solutions that they have been confronted in their working environments. Teachers report that political or ideological orientation of teacher unions, which function like agencies of political parties, negatively effect their membership decision in unions. Their expectations from teacher unions show variations but the most important one is to have a voice in decisions related to educational and legal rights issues. The attitudes of teachers based on the genders do not show any significant differences but the attitudes of male teachers toward teacher unions are slightly more positive than those of female teachers. Teacher attitudes toward teacher unions reveal significant difference based on the number of years that teachers taught in schools. Teachers who have one to five years teaching experience have the highest positive attitudinal mean average and the lowest attitudinal mean group belongs to the teachers who have more than 20 years teaching in schools. The attitudes toward teacher unions do not indicate any significant difference based on whether they are teachers or school administrators while teachers' attitudes toward teacher unions are higher than school administrators' attitudes. The attitudes of teachers and school administrators differ based on the school they graduated from. Teachers with a bachelor degree have the most positive attitudes when they were compared to the other teachers not graduated from a university affiliated colleges. Although teachers strongly support the teacher unions, they seem to be reluctant to be a member of teacher unions. Like previous studies (Boyacı, 1994), in our study elementary school teachers and school administrators also support teacher unions and they believe that teachers have to join professional organizations to protect their rights and to get support in judicial matters. On the other hand, the percentage of teachers who are the members of unions is not more than 55 percent despite no legal restrictions on membership. One of the reasons why teachers do not want to be a member of the unions could be explained through the relationships between teacher unions and political parties. In the future studies, the reasons behind why teachers are reluctant to be a member of teacher unions needs to be deeply studied and clearly explained with all aspects.

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