We are one of the oldest continuing organizations of employed technical professionals in the region and an early pioneer union that includes local government employees. We predate the establishment of our national (international) union by about a decade and were one of its original charter unions.

Although our historians uncovered evidence of the union as early as 1902, we do know that a formal union organization was established in the San Francisco Department of Public Works in 1911. Our members were civil engineers, draftspersons, architects, building inspectors and others and for a time we had members at the Hunters Point shipyard. In the 1930s and 40s chemists and other laboratory staff at Cutter Labs in Berkeley and at Shell Development were associated with our union after organizing in the CIO Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists & Technicians (FAECT). What is now Local 21 has been numbered Locals 39 , 11 and 17 at various times.

The modern union dates from April 1977 when a charter was issued with the Local 21 number. The mid-70s also coincided with a series of city-wide (San Francisco) municipal employee strikes and new collective bargaining legislation. Local 21 sued the city to implement that legislation and forced representation elections. Our engineers and technicians were quickly joined by chemists and subsequent affiliations of the city Accountants and Auditors Association, later by the Municipal Planners Association, Data Processing Guild and a variety of professional, administrative, technical and mid-management groups. Simultaneously, engineers organized in the Alameda County Public Works Agency and Zone 7 Water. In the city of Hayward, we won representation rights for the citys professional and technical employees, including engineers, building inspectors, librarians, chemists, planners and others. In recent years our membership has expanded to the Golden Gate Bridge District, Contra Costa Water District, East Bay Municipal Utility District, the cities of San Leandro and Richmond, and Santa Clara County. Since an initial organizing effort in 1995, we now have organized six units of Oakland city professional and administrative employees, anchoring our union solidly on both sides of the Bay.