Private interest defense and public interest rhetoric in the strategy of a profession. The cases of pupils' compressed school day and teachers' early retirement

Abstract

The ability of a group to promote its private interest in the public sphere depends to a large extent on its ability to present it as part of the public interest or, at least, not in contradiction with it. This general guideline is even truer for the professions, characterized by a high social status and a claim of altruist service, and for the welfare state services, for which the trade-off between costs and benefits is both private and public. This paper analyzes the union and corporate rhetoric about the continuous school day for pupils and the LOGSE (or LOE) anticipated retirement for teachers, two cases which can be considered successful instances of the identification of some particular goals with the public interest, in which teachers have been able to substitute a rhetoric debate about the improvement of education for the public exposition of an industrial conflict about goals which are privileges when compared to other workers conditions.