Mohammad Habibi / Trade Union Activist

In recent conversations among trade union activists, a question is repeatedly raised that deserves reflection: Where has the teachers' trade union movement stood today, and why has its form of action differed from previous years? Answering this question requires clarifying several fundamental points about the nature of the trade union movement itself before reaching any judgment on its "decline" or "vitality." This note aims to address these very points.

Conditions That Cannot Be Ignored

Before any theoretical discussion, we must see today's reality. We are not speaking in normal conditions. Today, the space of war, severe repression, securitization of all collective communication, dossier-making, dismissal, separation, forced retirement, and the transformation of administrative violation committees into arms of pressure has defined one of the hardest periods in the nearly three-decade-long life of educators' trade unions. In such a situation, discussing the form of action is not a theoretical or preference-based debate; it is a discussion about the lives, freedom, jobs, and security of activists who are on the front lines of actual repression. Any judgment on trade union action that ignores this reality is wrong from the start.

Social Credibility, Not Social Authority

Sometimes, in describing the teachers' trade union movement, the term "social authority" is used; as if this movement was once the authority and representative of the entire society. However, this expression is theoretically inaccurate, politically misleading, and even dangerous.

A demanding trade union movement — like that of workers, retirees, nurses, or teachers — forms around the specific demands of a social group. Such a movement can possess social credibility and moral influence, but it cannot and should not claim to represent the entire society. Society is more diverse than for a single trade union movement — however widespread and rooted — to be considered its authority. Even the sum of all trade union movements cannot claim to represent the whole people; because a large part of society has never been a member of any trade union organization and has no interest in it.
What the teachers' movement built over three decades was not "social authority"; rather, it was social credibility in the fields of public education, educational justice, and teacher dignity. This credibility is very important and must be guarded — but naming it "social authority" places a burden on the movement that exceeds its capacity, rather than merely honoring it.

A Trade Union Movement Is Not the Same as a Popular Uprising

From here we reach a distinction that ignoring it is the source of many incorrect judgments: the distinction between a demanding trade union movement and a popular uprising.
A trade union movement has a specific body, defined demands, an organizational mechanism with a long-term horizontal structure, and moves using tools such as statements, negotiations, gatherings, sit-ins, education, and organization. However, a popular uprising — like the December uprising or the Women, Life, Freedom movement — has a pervasive, explosive, and decentralized nature that necessarily does not arise from trade union organizations and does not follow the logic of trade union organization.
Expecting a trade union organization to be the engine or leader of a nationwide uprising is a mistake in understanding its nature. Trade union organizations can stand alongside popular uprisings, support their democratic and justice-seeking demands, and bear costs — but they are not successors to popular uprisings nor do they carry the burden of leading the entire society. Therefore, the fact that the trade union movement has not played a leading role at the societal level in any given period is not a sign of its decline; it is a sign of the essential difference between the trade union movement and a general uprising. Trade union movements are allies of popular uprisings, not their engines.

The Rationality of Survival

Sometimes today's teachers' movement is judged by the criteria of its peak periods of street presence: the number of gatherings and the extent of the participation of working and retired teachers in those gatherings.

However, this assessment leads to an incorrect result without taking into account the fundamental change in conditions. Those periods were important stages, but one stage cannot be used as a fixed criterion for measurement. After that, arrests, prison sentences, dismissals, and the securitization of all spheres multiplied the cost of any public action. Especially after the December protests and the establishment of critical and war-like conditions in the country, we are currently experiencing the heaviest space of repression since the 1960s within the country.
In such a situation, an organization that recklessly sends its forces into a high-risk field is not necessarily braver; it may even be acting irresponsibly. The function of a trade union movement is not to establish a permanent uprising; it is the continuation of advocacy and maintaining organizational capacity in the long term.
This statement is not merely a precautionary consideration; it also aligns with the analysis of researchers of social movements.

In a meeting organized by the Tehran Teachers' Trade Union Center

Titled "Organizing and Continuity of Civil Action in Today's Critical Conditions in Iran," Dr. Saeed Madani — a sociologist who himself paid the price of activism with imprisonment for years — presented two fundamental principles for civil institutions and trade union organizations during crises: the principle of survival and resilience.

Saeed Madani clarified that in critical conditions, the main issue for civil institutions is "self-preservation"; not meaning stopping activities, but rather choosing a field of struggle that does not compromise survival. He considered "choosing the field of struggle" part of strategic rationality: "The organization must continue its activities, but not in a way that destroys all its human and organizational capacity."
To illustrate the cost of ignoring this principle, he cited the example of the "Imam Ali Society" — an active association that suffered a fundamental blow and was eventually dissolved because it could not adjust its activities to crisis conditions; a clear lesson that an organization that endangers its survival for the sake of "passionate action" will ultimately lose both survival and action.

This statement has a very concrete meaning in today's Iran. When any collective action can be met with security accusations, when any connection can turn into a case file, and when citizens are daily confronted with execution news and new rulings, preserving the organization is no longer just a conservative choice; it is part of resistance itself.

Dr. Asad Beyat also pointed to a complementary point at the same session: social energy does not remain sustainable if it does not turn into "structure." "From this perspective, face-to-face links, small circles, meetings, dialogues, book reading, hiking, and group gatherings — if they serve to preserve the network and strengthen trust — are not the periphery of the movement; they are part of the process of converting scattered energy into lasting capacity."
Asad Beyat emphasized that what keeps a movement alive in the long term is not the intensity of momentary action, but the continuity of these human links.

Small action is not necessarily demand-less action

Sometimes activities such as walking, hiking, book reading, small meetings, and virtual programs are labeled "demand-less gatherings." This judgment is an oversimplification of reality.
It must be clearly stated that no group is effective solely by virtue of being held; and assessing which action serves to preserve the network and advocacy versus which merely fills a void is the responsibility of the organization. However, from this correct statement, one cannot conclude that every low-cost action is meaningless. In conditions of suppression, these forms — which appear low-risk and non-political — have a vital function: maintaining member connections, preventing psychological erosion, and keeping the body active. The ultimate goal here is survival itself; and in the heart of suppression, survival is not a meager end, but the condition for any future advocacy.

Analytical virtual programs and dialogues with thinkers — of which the Madani and Beyat session is an example — also have an enlightening function and are themselves signs of dynamism, not weakness.
An organization that maintains a space for thinking and dialogue even in the hardest conditions is preserving its essence.
This does not mean denying the streets. The streets have played an important role at various stages and have revealed the power of demand. However, the street is not the only field of action; before any gathering, a network of trust and organization is necessary; without it, the street becomes a temporary event. So if today part of the movement's energy is spent on rebuilding these networks, this should not be understood as being against the streets; these can be the infrastructure for tomorrow's streets.

Main issue: linking survival and advocacy

Nevertheless, a real question remains that should not be ignored: how can one establish a link between low-cost forms of survival and clear advocacy? If meetings, book reading, and walking are not linked to demand and organization, they may gradually lose their effect. However, the solution is not to belittle these forms or declare the death of the movement; rather, it is to make them purposeful.
Every program — small or large — must be able to clarify what it preserves, what demand it strengthens, what body it keeps active, what awareness it produces, and how it can connect to broader, demand-oriented action at the appropriate time. The main discussion is not "simply returning to the streets" nor "reducing to small gatherings," but rather building a strategy that links survival, organization, and advocacy together. These two are not opposed to each other; they are conditions for one another.

Final words
The teachers' movement, if it has built capital, did so not from claims of authority over society, but from standing firm on its clear demands: defending public education, the dignity of teachers, educational justice, freedom of professional activity, and the right of all children to free, quality, and equal education.
Therefore, the correct question is not why we have lost "society's authority" — because we never claimed it. The more precise question is how to preserve and rebuild the movement's social credibility, organizational capacity, and advocacy power in these hardest conditions. And the answer lies neither in belittling small forms of resistance nor in denying the past, but in consciously linking survival, organization, and advocacy. This is the most difficult yet necessary task facing the teachers' professional movement today — a task that will continue not through exaggerating the past or blackening today, but only through correctly understanding the conditions and remaining faithful to those rooted demands.