The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) is a

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

representing approximately 88,000 white-collar working people in the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

and

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

s. It has members in all 50

US states In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

, the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

, as well as in one local in Canada.

History

Clerical unions began forming in the early 1900s. By 1920, the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...

(AFL) had issued charters to more than 50 clerical unions. In 1942, the locals banded together to form the International Council of Office Employee Unions. In 1945, this union received a charter from the AFL as the Office Employees International Union. In 1992, the union absorbed the

Leather Workers' International Union of America The Leather Workers' International Union of America (LWU) was a labor union representing workers in the leather industry in the United States and Canada. The union was founded on January 14, 1955, as the Leather Workers' Organizing Committee. Its ...

. In 2010, the Association of Minor League Umpires, the national labor union that represents Minor League Baseball umpires voted to join OPEIU.

Canadian autonomy

Canadian members made up nearly a quarter of the union as early as the 1970s but in 2003 the OPEIU chose not to appoint a Canadian to the position of Secretary-Treasurer, the second-highest union rank. In March 2004, OPEIU President Michael Goodwin concluded that the American locals of the union had subsidized the Canadian locals by approximately $10 million. Goodwin proposed raising the per capita dues of Canadian OPEIU members by $2.00 per member per month, which, accounting for the then low Canadian dollar, would mean Canadians were paying more in dues than their American counterparts. On June 20, 2004, the Canadian locals voted 74 percent to 26 percent to form their own, autonomous union under the umbrella of the international. OPEIU Canadian delegates to the international convention, meeting in Bal Harbor, Florida, withdrew from the proceedings and formed their own national union—the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union (COPE).

Presidents

:1945: Paul Hutchings :1953: Howard Coughlin :1979: John Kelly :1994: Michael Goodwin :2015: Richard Lanigan

History

Canadian autonomy

Presidents

References

Further reading

External links

Archives