Organizing the Organizers: Professional Staff Unionism in the American Labor Movement

Abstract

This study summarizes the history of bargaining units formed to represent professional employees of American unions and presents the results of a 1987–88 survey of officers of 40 such professional staff unions. These special unions, which date to the early 1950s, resemble conventional unions in the bargaining issues that are most important to them (job security and salaries), as well as in their relationships with management (in this case, union leaders), which range from amicable to antagonistic. They differ sharply, however, in their infrequent use of strikes. Professional staff unionism is most common in large, industrial unions, less common in smaller industrial, professional, and service unions, and virtually nonexistent in the building trades.