[1] After working as a field officer for the NUT for four years, Dawson moved to become assistant secretary of the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions (ATTI).
In this role, he supported lecturers at the Guildford School of Art who had been sacked for objecting to it amalgamating with another college, and Jennifer Muscutt, who had been sacked from Garretts Green Technical College for taking part in a sexually-explicit educational film before she started working at the institution.
Both cases were resolved successfully, and the ATTI grew rapidly, with Dawson moving to become its negotiating secretary in 1974.
[1] The ATTI took part in a merger which formed the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), and in 1979 Dawson was appointed as general secretary of the new union.
[1] Dawson retired in 1998, but continued working as a consultant to Education International, also serving as a Labour Party councillor on Lewisham London Borough Council.