This article, which is the result from a research in course, meets ideas about the teachers' labor and the teachers' unionism in the elementary public school. It aims at highlighting the complexity that involves those aspects, mostly in the last years, as a result from transformations in the schools organization and in their work form of organization which occurred in society in the last decades. It takes as object to analyze public education systems and trade union organizations that represent their teachers in Minas Gerais State capital city. The most relevant aspects of work done in those systems are shown, as well as the trade unions organization history and their current characteristics, and also the tensions and challenges faced in the last years. This study is built on documents produced by union entities (bulletins, newspapers, reports, among others, preferentially published in their websites) and, still, on semistructured interviews made with union leaders in 2010. From the results obtained until now, it is possible to observe significant convergences and divergences among the trade unions, as it is evident in some variables, such as: organization scope; structure and organization; actions developed; claims, difficulties and challenges, among others.
teachers unionism; teachers' labor