Should there be a Project Manager's Union?

Hossam, thanks for your comments. Actually in your field, construction, I can see a positive application for a project management union.

Mounir, firstly I later said that "it could be an association, as long as they were project manager advocates, not project management advocates", so it may not have to be a union. Secondly, this is not about PMI, this is about project managers being represented at not only PMI, but other qualification bodies, places of employment, perhaps even legally. Regarding how PMI and other qualification bodies discipline: they can do so by taking away a certification based on alleged misconduct. What I am saying is there is no counter balance for action, and I don't to the view that one can vote with their wallet as Kiron stated, as there are only a handful of institutions that certify PM's and once someone has invested years and money into a certification, it is not a viable option to let the certification go and join another certification body. It could be a question of livelihood in some cases.

I am leaning this way also Mansoor.

Hi Eric, hmm I can think of a few. Such as where professional bodies discipline project managers erroneously, perhaps taking away their credentials, perceived unfair auditing (I have heard of some PM's getting audited 3 times while other don't get audited at all), dismissal from projects or even jobs based on alleged bad project management when perhaps other factors were the cause, there could be unbias advice on certification bodies for various qualifications, and perhaps the biggest advantage would be lobbying for certain decisions to be made that affect project managers, similar to the way petitions/voting can change legislation. That's just off the top of my head. There may be others.

Here's a more clear example Eric. Professional bodies (when they state audits are "random") should have to justify why some they audit someone 3 times and others zero times. Perhaps a lobby group / union with say half a million members could influence said body to come up with a system such as distributing audits to other members at least once before auditing someone else a second time. Anther example might be PDU's such as raising the PDU's for professional experience and lowering the PDU's to decimal places (just like they do for some webinars) for say reading a book or chatting in a forum; these perhaps should be 0.1 PDU for 1 hour of reading, not 1 PDU for 1 hour. Random individuals requesting this would likely get no response or change, however a large membership such as a union or lobby group would be a lot more successful.

Anish, it is fair to say that only PM's that felt their interests could be protected would agree that a union would be necessary. Of course such a union should be voluntary without the pressures of traditional unions coercing membership. But with around 2 million PMP and Prince2 certification holders, not to mention the many other certifications/qualifications, even 20% of that carries some significant influence. By the way my position is neutral, I simply raised the question, however I am leaning to the affirmative side ;-)

Sante, I hear you. We have a professional organization at work, and I know some of the benefits like resource sharing, training etc. May be there is some potential to have an association for project managers. Anyway I will go with the group.

The "group" is around 50/50 so far Anish lol.

Since you are leaning towards having a union, I hope you will get over 50%, In that case, I'm automatically in that group :)