The article analyses the teachers' union organization in the states and municipal educational systems from Campo Grande, in Mato Grosso do Sul state, in the period between 1977 and 2010. The period considered ends the Mato Grosso State division and, as a result, there is the creation and administrative foundation of Mato Grosso do Sul state, when teachers were organized, because of federal law restrictions, in associations. Since the enactment of the Federal Constitution in 1988, which authorized the trade union organization for the public servants, teachers in the municipality of Campo Grande and in Mato Grosso do Sul state organized themselves in unions. This union organization, in that period, has passed through significant changes; this is the need for education workers in improving/reviewing their union structure for more democratization, or because of education reforms that were operated by the Brazilian State. For this, the article presents federal, state and municipal documents and laws, documents from trade unions, semistructured interviews and the literature from that area. It was noticed that teachers unionism organization expresses, on one hand, the internal conflicts in the category in which corporative mechanisms still operate that interfered in the democratization process; on the other hand, it is has been manifesting the contradictions inherent between capital and work fights in the State sphere.
education policies; teachers unionism; Mato Grosso do Sul State