Our Mission is to provide effective leadership for the collective bargaining unit of the Local 4168 AFL-CIO in Detroit, MI. The scope of our services extends from active members to retirees from years back. Members and retirees alike are encouraged to attend our quarterly meetings, attend classes and seminars, and visit our web page here at www.daeoe.org regularly to keep up to date on all of the latest and future DAEOE activities. 

The Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees (DAEOE) came into being in 1931 when a group of non instructional office employees, primarily school and administrative secretaries (DAES). We have always been known informally as "The Association" - a strong, descriptive appellation meaning an organized body of people who have some interest, activity, or purpose in common. Even though Michigan's public employees would not win the right to bargain collectively until 1965, from the very beginning the objective of the Association were the improvement of wages, hours of work and working conditions, fellowship and the promotion of the economic and social welfare of non certified office personnel of the Detroit Public Schools.

On November 23, 1965, the Detroit Board of Education formally recognized the Detroit Association of Educational Secretaries (now DAEOE) as the sole and exclusive collective bargaining representatives of its approximately 1000 educational office employees who were divided into more than fifty (50) classifications. The first negotiating team was elected by the Board of Directors, the first formal contract was successfully negotiated and we were well on our way to a major restructuring of the Association's framework.

It was in 1987 that the membership unanimously agreed the organization's name, Detroit Association of Educational Secretaries did not adequately reflect the true make of its total membership and their many, varied classifications, and our name was changed to DAEOE by a resounding vote of the membership.

Another milestone was reached in 1970 when the Association opened its first office at 15800 W. McNichols and President Ruth Carter was granted a Professional Leave of Absence from the Detroit Public Schools to serve as the Association's first full-time paid employee.

By 1981 the Board of Directors and membership recognized the need and desirability of an affiliation with an international labor union. Not just any labor union, but one familiar with the unique needs of problems of employees working in the field of education. Once again, the membership voted in favor of GROWTH and joined the mainstream of the labor movement by affiliation as Local 4168 of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, and it affiliates. 

The Paraprofessional and School-Related Personnel (PSRP) division of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, represents more than 350,000 school support staff in K-12 districts, colleges and universities. Our jobs include office employees, custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, instructional paraprofessionals, food service workers, school nurses and health aides, technicians, groundskeepers, secretaries, bookkeepers, mechanics, special education assistants and hundreds of other job titles.