After a decade of attacks, public schools in Australia are looking battered and bruised. A Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), which seeks to subject public schools to the logic of the market, is taking root worldwide, and Australia is no exception.

In Australia, as elsewhere, schools are in crisis. They have become subject to questionable metrics for assessing “performance” in order to secure funding. Demands for productivity increases have seen teachers’ workloads skyrocket, as hours are now wasted on data collection and bureaucratic reporting. The spread in temporary contracts is undermining job security. As well as teachers’ work conditions, the quality of education and school facilities is deteriorating.

This is the context that the New South Wales’ Teachers Federation (NSWTF) — representing around 60,000 teachers, one of the largest education unions in the world — finds itself in during its bargaining period, negotiating terms for their industrial award and staffing agreement. As NSWTF weigh their contract negotiation strategies, we should look to the example set by teachers in the United States, who have repeatedly shown — most recently with another successful strike by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) last month — that teachers are strategically placed to lead their communities in a fight against austerity and the commercialization of public services.