Who We are

Who We Are

The Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) is the largest union of Registered Nurses and health care professionals in New Jersey. With more than 15,000 members in our 20 locals, we are a union of nurses, social workers, therapists, technicians, medical researchers and other healthcare professionals. We work in hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, blood banks and university research facilities throughout New Jersey and the Philadelphia area.

HPAE is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has over 1.8 million members. AFT’s national healthcare division, AFT Nurses and Health Professionals, has over 250,000 health professionals across a wide variety of disciplines and settings nationwide. In the past 10 years, nearly 100,000 health professionals across the nation have joined our union with thousands organizing each year, making AFT Nurses and Health Professionals the fastest-growing healthcare union in the country and the second-largest nurses’ union in the AFL-CIO.  AFT provides our union with additional resources and support, including financial analysis and research of employers, continuing education programs, and assistance for our organizing program. Together, we are driving the fight for safe staffing, and other issues impacting health professionals, through collective bargaining and legislation.

 

History of HPAE: HPAE: New Jersey’s Professional Health Care Union

The Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) is the largest union of Registered Nurses and health care professionals in New Jersey. With more than 15,000 members, we are also the fastest growing health care union in the state, as our membership has grown almost four times in size since 1981.

Read “We Are Your HPAE”: A New Member Guide to learn more about HPAE.

HPAE began through the efforts of the nursing staff in 1974 at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, New Jersey when they organized an independent association at the hospital. These nurses came together to discuss their difficult and demeaning working conditions, including being forced to rotate shifts, low pay, and no recognition for education or experience. The nurses ultimately decided that the best chance they had of changing their workplace was to unionize. When they won their union election in September of 1974, they became the first private sector union of nurses in the State of New Jersey and subsequently achieved wins in their working conditions that were publicized statewide.

Their union was tested early, as Englewood Hospital’s management made repeated efforts to break their union; even stooping to such petty tactics as suspending the union president for refusing to wear a nurse’s cap!

Within a few short years, nurses and other healthcare workers in surrounding hospitals, such as Pascack Valley Hospital, Jersey Shore Medical Center, and Palisades Medical Center, noticed the difference it made to be in a union, and they reached out to the “Englewood Hospital Professional Nurses Association” for help in forming their own local unions. Eventually, they too voted to join, and, within 20 years, our small union of nurses had grown to ten times its original size as more and more healthcare workers joined us.

Now, 50 years later, we are 15,000 members strong, representing many more healthcare professionals, including social workers, respiratory therapists, lab workers, blood bank technicians, nursing assistants, even IT specialists in hospitals, long term care facilities, blood banks, labs, homecare agencies and research facilities. And we continue to grow.

We are the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, also known as HPAE, and we are the largest healthcare union in New Jersey. We started out small but grew into a powerhouse.

Affiliations

The leadership of HPAE felt they needed to affiliate with a strong, national union in order to have the resources to “spread the word” concerning the benefits of unionizing.

With this goal in mind, HPAE members voted to affiliate with the Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, the healthcare division of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 1979.  AFT Nurses and Health Professionals (NHP) unit currently represents 250,000 health professionals who practice in a variety of disciplines and settings. Although more than half of our members are registered nurses, the division also represents medical researchers, physicians, dietitians, psychologists, X-ray technicians, therapists and others. AFT Nurses and Health Professionals is the second-largest nurses’ union in the AFL-CIO.

After affiliation with AFT Healthcare, HPAE’s growth continued. That growth included not just nurses but other health care workers who wanted the benefits of collective bargaining. Our continuing growth and effectiveness are built on democratically run locals made up of members and leaders who strive together to win safe working conditions, respect for our professions, safe and effective patient care, and sound healthcare policies.  HPAE is a leader in establishing exacting standards of clinical practice, patient care, and research.

Those organizing with HPAE have done so for several reasons: HPAE’s professional yet aggressive approach to bargaining, our well-publicized wins for healthcare workers in communities and across the state and the fact that we are a democratic union run by and for its members.

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AFL-CIO

Through AFT, HPAE is also affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).  The AFL-CIO is a democratically governed federation of 60 national and international unions, each with its own distinct membership and unique voice, that represent more than 12.5 million working people. The AFL-CIO works to improve the lives of working people, fights for fair wages, safe workplaces, and economic justice, and provides resources and support to its affiliates. 

New Jersey State AFL-CIO

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is an umbrella group of unions representing more than 1 million working families in a wide range of occupations, from bricklayers and machinists to nurses, firefighters and teachers. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is committed to representing the interests of all New Jersey union members and their families, whether by legislative and political work or through working with affiliates in organizing and member mobilization

Central Labor Councils

Central Labor Councils are the local organization of the AFL-CIO, together we collaborate with other unions and community allies to advocate for pro-worker policies, organize, and build stronger communities on a local level. Central Labor Councils are organized by county, region, and major metropolitan areas.