http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1127 ... 47,00.html

The New Union Worker
Engineers, Judges and Doctors Band Together to Gain Clout; Waking Up the Pharmacists
By Kris Maher
The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2005; Page B1

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The growth of white-collar unions says much about the precarious nature of jobs of all types in the current economy. Decaying job security and benefits and the effects of global trade on labor costs all have begun to reach into the ranks of professional workers.

'Professionals join unions because they feel that their work is being devalued. Many of these workers had good pensions and good benefits, and they don't anymore,' says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Professionals, she adds, may fear being replaced by independent contractors or seeing their jobs outsourced.

Yet there often are restrictions on what white-collar unions can do for their members. In the case of government workers, federal rules prohibit collective bargaining in some cases; NASA scientists are represented by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, but their pay and benefits are set by Congress. Other professionals, such as psychologists, don't need unions to bargain with employers, because they are mainly self-employed. But they do rely on unions' political influence to help shape legislation affecting their profession, and they still pay dues.

What do they get in return? In New York, psychologists say the clout of the teachers union has helped them maintain Medicaid reimbursements for psychological treatment in recent years after state legislators introduced budget proposals to eliminate it.

Some affiliations may stretch the definition of a union, but the lure of organizing often is the same for both professionals and blue-collar workers: It gives them at least the hope of wielding more clout in negotiations with management. The National Association of Immigration Judges, for instance, became a local of the Engineers union about eight years ago, when it was negotiating a contract and wanted the resources of a national union. (While engineers and judges may not seem to have much in common, the judges felt the engineers understood their concerns better than other unions such as the Teamsters would, as well as their point of view in terms of dealing with management.)

The judges group, whose pay and pensions are set by Congress, bargains on other issues for roughly 200 immigration judges across the country. For instance, the union is negotiating with the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review over implementing new productivity goals, work schedules and grievance procedures.

'We have virtually no time off the bench,' says Denise Slavin, a 49-year-old immigration court judge in Miami who is president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Negotiations have been difficult, she says, and the group hopes they go to arbitration. 'I've been a professional all my life,' she says. 'I never felt the need to be in a union before this.'

Much of the professional unions' growth is coming in the public sector, among librarians, attorneys and state and local administrators. Unions have been able to add tens of thousands of workers in these areas, largely because they face far less employer resistance during organizing drives, labor experts say. Organizing elections at government agencies succeed more than 90% of the time, compared with just over half of the time at private employers.

Unions like those in the AFL-CIO are welcoming professionals to their ranks because they realize they must reach this expanding pool of the work force in order to grow, as traditional groups of unionized workers in manufacturing, for example, are shrinking. Indeed, even as the unionized portion of the U.S. work force dwindles -- down to about 12.5% last year -- the addition of white-collar union members has helped offset losses in traditional union sectors.