ABSTRACT
The relationship between professional commitment and union orientation is underexplored. The literature on professions, including that on gender and professions, rarely mentions trade unionism (e.g. Macdonald 1995; Witz 1992). The omission may be partly the result of neglect or based on assumptions around the perceived incompatibility of being a professional worker with trade union membership. (This latter point is best illustrated by the perception that a key trade union strategy, industrial action, is deemed ‘unprofessional’.) Yet to neglect this crucial relationship denies the value of a significant aspect of the employment experience of many workers characterised as ‘professional’.
