Labor & Employment Law

Professionals Make Up Largest Group of Union Members

By James Parks

Laurie Kennington

Laurie Kennington is one of the emerging faces of unions in the 21st century. A Yale graduate (Class of 2001), she is the new president of UNITEHERE! Local 34, the largest union on the Yale campus.

Kennington, who joined the union right after college, and Local 34, both symbolize the rapid growth of professionals and women among union members. In fact, white-collar workers accounted for 53.9 percent of all union members in 2009. Local 34, which began as a clerical union, has grown to represent 3,400 employees, many of them in Yale?s rapidly growing medical research areas. Before becoming president of the local, Kennington was a lead organizer for the Yale medical research facilities.

The AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE) reports there are more union members among professional and technical workers than any other occupational group. Last year, more than 5.2 million professional and related workers were union members and more than 5.8 million were represented by unions.

DPE President Paul Almeida says:

Professional and technical people are today the fastest growing occupational groups in our nation. Their explosive growth over the past two decades has brought into sharp focus a host of work and life challenges. Every day these hard-working individuals face a lack of respect on the job, challenges to professional integrity and other obstacles to doing their work right, excessive hours of work, inadequate pension, health care and other benefits; insufficient time for family commitments and job insecurity.

Millions of professionals have determined that the way to effectively engage their employers in a meaningful dialogue about these matters is through union representation.

Women, and especially women of color, are forming and joining unions at a faster rate than men. Many of the unions organizing in industries dominated by women, such as education and government, have consistently shown much higher win rates than those unions organizing in industries with fewer women members, according to DPE.

Kennington is the second Yale graduate to lead one of the unions at the school. John Wilhelm (Class of 1967), now international president of UNITEHERE!, once headed Local 35, which represents service and maintenance workers, and helped organize Local 34 in 1983.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).