Three Types of Organizations

It is useful to recognize that there are three basic types of organizations that generally represent public sector employees: associations, general-purpose unions, and function-specific unions.

Associations are organizations of government employees which were not originally intended to function as unions, but rather as professional organizations. Associations were founded to promote certain professions and to provide services and benefits to their employee members outside of the direct employer-employee relationship. Often these profession-based associations included supervisory and managerial employees, as well as non-supervisory workers, within a profession. With the rise of collective bargaining in the public sector, many of these employee associations began to engage in collective bargaining. In some cases they were motivated to do this to prevent their memberships from being eroded by traditional unions. Prominent examples of associations which have adopted collective bargaining as an important part of the services they provide to members are the National Education Association (NEA), which represents teachers, and the American Nursing Association (ANA).

General-purpose unions are traditional unions, in the sense that their principal reason for being is to collectively bargain with employers on behalf of employees whom they represent. These unions in the public sector are equivalent to “industrial” unions in the private sector—that is, general-purpose unions represent groups of employees in a variety of different jobs and professions, bound only by the fact that they work in the same sector or industry (in this case the public or government sector). Prominent examples of general-purpose unions in the public sector include the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT).

Finally, function-specific unions are unions which only represent individuals who are employed in a particular profession or occupation. In this sense, they are equivalent to “craft” unions in the private sector. Examples of prominent function-specific unions in the public sector include the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Whether a group of employees is represented by an association, a general-purpose union, or a function-specific union may have ramifications for union-management relations. Historically, associations tended to be less aggressive than unions in their approach to collective bargaining. However, this difference has faded over time. Function-specific unions, more so than general-purpose unions, may bring a great deal of specialized expertise and experience in representing employees in their profession or occupation to the bargaining table. There is some evidence that general-purpose unions are more inclined than function-specific unions to attempt to impose statewide or national collective bargaining goals—such as uniform safety practices or fringe-benefit packages—on smaller-scale bargaining units, such as the employees of a particular city or town government. General-purpose unions probably have a more difficult task representing groups of employees, as they often represent employees in a variety of jobs with widely varying interests. AFSCME, for example, represents groups of workers ranging from prison guards to highway workers to engineers and scientists. This may make it difficult for the union’s leadership to reach an agreement with management that will satisfy the varying needs of the different employee groups in that bargaining unit.