I’m a Professional.

I’m a Professional.What Can a Union Do for Me?

I am a professional. What can a union do for me? By joining with your colleagues in a union at your workplace you benefit in many ways. On the job, your union brings together the collective strength of you and your co-workers to insure meaningful negotiations with management for an equitable contract. Besides wages and salaries, areas that can be negotiated include: staffing and overtime, safety and health, cost of living raises, adequate pensions, vacations, equitable promotion systems and transfer policies, and a workable grievance system. Through your union, you and your co-workers oversee carrying out the provisions of the contract. If necessary, a union may take contract violations and wrongs to workers to third-party impartial arbitration.

Outside of the work place, the union works for you as well. The status of your profession and the well-being of the individual practitioner are not only affected by employing institutions but by government. Union organizations have been extremely effective in advocating the cause of their members in the halls of government at the federal, state, and county levels. Every day unions fight hard for their members in Congress, state legislatures, city hall, the courts and other departments and agencies of government. In an era of ever larger health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and insurance companies, this advocacy is more important than ever for health care professionals and staff. [READ MORE.]


The Department for Professional Employees (DPE) is a coalition of 23 national unions representing over four million highly skilled, white-collar employees. DPE unions include professionals in over three hundred separate and distinct occupations in many sectors including: health care and education; science, engineering and technology; journalism, entertainment and the arts; public administration and law enforcement. The DPE is the largest association of professional, technical and administrative support workers in the U.S.