Office and Professional Employees International Union

Clerical unions began forming in the early 1900s. By 1920, the American Federation of Labor (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 2010, the Association of Minor League Umpires, the national labor union that represents Minor League Baseball umpires voted to join OPEIU.[2]

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.[3] 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.[3]

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) and, in Quebec, the Syndicat Canadien des employees et employes de bureau et professionels.

• Finley, Joseph E. White Collar Union: The Story of the OPEIU and Its People. New York City: Octagon Books, 1975. ISBN 0-374-92742-1

• OPEIU web site
• COPE/SEPB (Canadian) web site