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employee association, in U.S. private industry, an organization of employees that is concerned primarily with welfare and recreational activities. In public employment, employee associations also advocate legislative and administrative action in matters of compensation and working conditions. Employee associations developed as company unions in the United States in the late 19th century. With the increasing unionization of labour in the 1930s, company unions virtually ceased to exist and employee associations took on their present character. Membership in employee associations may be automatic upon employment, which implies some degree of employer sponsorship, or voluntary, which indicates less direct employer support. In either case, the principal activities include some or all of the following: the provision of various forms of group insurance programs (e.g., life, health, automobile, and so forth); the operation of a credit union; the supervision of recreational centres or vacation resorts; the operation of medical centres, cooperative stores, or buying clubs; and the sponsorship of athletic teams or cultural events.

In Great Britain, employee associations are limited mainly to associations of professional (administrative, technical, and clerical) workers, formed primarily for the preservation and improvement of professional standards. In the second half of the 20th century, they had come to exercise many of the functions of trade unions, including bargaining about salary and fee scales. In Sweden, Germany, and other European countries, it is common for non-manual workers to belong to associations that are similar in many respects to trade unions.