DPE Mission Statement

The Department for Professional Employees (DPE) is a coalition of 24 national unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO which represent 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.

The Mission of this Department shall be to assist its affiliated unions to achieve their objectives on behalf of professional and technical workers. It will do so by:

·         Offering a forum for discussion, collaboration, and action;

·         Promoting the efforts of professional and technical workers to organize, bargain collectively, and provide mutual support;

·         Showing the high value of union membership to professional and technical workers and to the public;

·         Building alliances with professional associations and societies promoting the interests of professional and technical workers;

·         Fostering diversity in the professional and technical workforce; and

·         Advancing public policies strengthening the security, well-being and status of professional and technical workers.

DPE is one of seven constitutional "trades" departments that are part of the AFL-CIO structure. It was chartered by the Federation in 1977 in recognition of the remarkable increase in professional and technical employees occurring at that time among union members. Since then, that growth has accelerated as America’s "the world of work" transitions even more dramatically from blue to white collar. Today, the community of professional workers within organized labor is now a near majority of the 9 million member AFL-CIO.

In this environment, as more professionals seek union representation, the work of the DPE will be essential to expanding the reach of DPE unions among professional and technical workers as well as to the vitality, diversification, and future of the American labor movement.