Collective Bargaining Unions provide a vital service to employees and management by negotiating contracts, ensuring workplace safety, and representing employees at grievance hearings. While there are hundreds of unions in the United States, this paper focuses on three major unions, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the American Federation of Teachers ( AFT ). Additionally, this paper will compare and contrast these agencies, summarize their roles in optimizing employee relationships with organizations, describe the four challenges facing management and union officials, and evaluate privatization as a means of breaking workers' unions. public employees. Compare and contrast three unionsThe NTEU began in In 1938 as the National Association of Revenue Collector Employees (NAECIR) to reflect their expanded membership, they changed their name to NTEU in 1973 (History of NTEU, n.d.). The NTEU is an independent organization whose mission is “to organize federal employees to work together to ensure that every federal employee is treated with dignity” (Who We Are, n.d.). While AFSCME began in 1932, in response to the Depression and out of fear of the reestablishment of the spoiler system, its mission “to promote, defend, and improve the system of public administration” (AFSCME: 75 Year History, n.d.). Although the AFT began in Chicago in 1916 as part of its mission, it sought to raise the wages of all members, including women and minorities (History of the AFT, n.d.). As a result, the AFT and AFSCME are fully under the AFL-CIO and the NTEU remain independent. . While the AFT focuses on educators, the AFSCME focuses on state and local employees and… halfway through…, RS (2011). Public employees: How union membership influences public service motivation. The American Review of Public Administration, 41(6), 705-723. doi:10.1177/0275074010392367Kearney, R. C. (2011). Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Challenges of Political Leadership in a Hostile Environment. Public Administration Review, 71(5), 772-781. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02418.xMasters, M. F. (1998). AFSCME as a political union. Journal of Labor Research, 19(2), 313-350.Perry, J. L., & Wise, L. R. (1990). The motivational foundations of public service. Public Administration Review, 50(3), 367-373. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/976618Tobias, R. M. (2004). The future of federal government labor relations and the mutual interests of Congress, the Administration, and the unions. Journal of Labor Research, 25(1), 19-41.