Professional associations or unions? A comparative look.(The Role of Professional Associations)

INTRODUCTION

Looking at the white collar working class, Mills (1951) explains that,

before the twentieth century, American life was characterized by a decentralized

economic life, directed predominately by the interests of private

ownership. The two primary economic forces which guided the capitalistic

system of the country by the end of the nineteenth century were the

independent farmer and the small businessman. At that time, in their

small isolated world, these two working groups of men were separate economic

entities struggling for survival and improvement of individual property.

With the coming of the twentieth century, society experienced a dramatic

change. Previously, small enterprises began merging into big corporations,

while government, faced with new tasks, became much more

elaborate and complex. The eventual result of this change was the removal

of the members of the old middle class from their isolated worlds

and into a bureaucratic and complex system in which occupation instead

of property became the main source of income. The American middle

class, composed now mainly of white-collar workers, found itself in a

centralized economic system in which people's interaction and interdependence

were central and brought a stronger awareness of each other (Mills,

1951).

According to Sherif and Sherif (1969), the presence of organized

groups is a consequence of interacting individuals "who possess a set of

values or norms of their own regulating their behavior, at least in matters

of consequence to the group" (p. 131). In the case of white-collar workers,

group organization often took the form of either professional associations

or unions, both of them representing the special interests and

objectives of this class of employees. Although both labor unions and

professional societies already existed in the nineteenth century, it was in

the last hundred years when both of them managed to successfully attract

a large number of individuals and legitimize themselves as a means to

pursue the interests of their membership.

According to Haug and Sussman (1973): "Unionization and

professionalization are two processes by which members of an occupation

seek to achieve collective upward mobility" (p. 89). This is analogous,

the authors explain, to an individual's striving to improve his pay,

working conditions, autonomy, and status, the only difference being that,

whereas individual efforts can be easily hindered, collective efforts are

often seen as a more effective way of dealing with similar issues. However,

although labor unions and professional associations offer an alternative

in improving a profession's status, they are often seen as antithetical

especially when it comes to their culture, motives for joined action,

and the particular values they ultimately promulgate.

A CULTURE OF INTEGRATION AND CONFLICT

According to Parsons (1969), associations join different social institutions

that would otherwise threaten the integrity of modem society if

each individual pursued his own self interest. Functionalism, the theory

Parsons subscribes to, holds that associations have the ability to bring

order by providing a consensual normative structure--i.e., agreed-upon

values--which direct the behavior of individuals according to what is defined

as proper, legal, or acceptable by the rest of the community. Referring

specifically to what they called occupational community, Van Maanen

and Barley (1984) described it as "a group of people who consider themselves

to be engaged in the same sort of work; whose identity is drawn

from the work; [and] who share with one another a set of values, norms

and perspectives" (p. 287).

Professional associations ascribe to a culture of consensual collective

efforts to preserve a profession's unified front. As Galaskiewicz (1985)

notes, "one of the latent functions of professional associations is to put

people together in committees, panels, task forces, and study groups who

might not otherwise be attracted to one another based on

their background characteristics alone" (p. 640). A consequence of such

interactions is the establishment of a unified culture for the profession,

the institutionalization of professional codes of contact, establishment of

educational and performance standards, and the diffusion and incorporation

of change and innovation within the profession. In the library

field, for example, professional associations have provided a shared sense

of professional identity just as an increasing number of subspecialties and

variety of work settings have emerged.

Although integration has been credited as one of the main characteristics

of the professional association's culture, labor unions have often

been charged with quite the opposite. The presence of union groups is

often treated as the result of conflict of interests between management

and workers. The charge has repeatedly been made that such organizations

split the profession, dissociating people and institutions.

Galaskiewicz (1985) explains that, particularly in times of uncertainty,

"professionals will seek out those with whom they can communicate easily,

even if this means that they systematically segregate themselves from a

subset of other actors in the group" (p. 646). White-collar labor unions

sprang up as a reaction to a search for occupational justice and improvement

of working conditions among the rank-and-file of a profession …