United Public Employees (UPE) is an independent labor union representing Sacramento County and Sacramento Courts employees. Since 1983, UPE has advocated for fair salaries, affordable healthcare, and safe working conditions for a workforce that spans the Sheriff's Office, District Attorney, Assessor, Probation, and essential community services like Meals on Wheels.

UPE represents the kind of broad, multi-department public sector membership that places real demands on union staff: dues across many classifications, active grievance and disciplinary cases, frequent member moves between departments, and time-sensitive deadlines that cannot be missed. To support that workload, UPE needed software built for the realities of union case management, not generic membership tracking.

To get there, UPE turned to eMembership for a single platform that combines membership administration, case management, communications, and reporting in one system.

Two disconnected systems, and deadlines tracked by hand

Before adopting eMembership, UPE relied on two separate legacy systems: one for membership administration and another for case management. The split created data silos that made nearly every workflow slower and more error-prone.

• Siloed member and dues records. Membership data and dues were housed separately, with no real-time picture of a member's status.
• Split contact information. Member contact details lived in different places, creating inefficiencies in outreach and communications.
• Manual deadline tracking. Grievance and disciplinary case deadlines were tracked by hand, increasing the risk of missed timelines.
• External tools for bulk communications. Bulk email required exporting data into third-party tools, adding steps and delay to urgent outreach.

UPE needed an integrated platform that centralized members and cases, surfaced deadlines automatically, and removed the dependency on third-party tools for routine work.

One platform built for members and cases together

eMembership replaced UPE's two disconnected systems with an integrated, union-specific platform. Case files now live inside the member record, deadlines are calculated automatically, and case managers can act on priority items directly from a dashboard.

• Grievances integrated with member records. Case managers see grievance details inside a member's profile, and member context inside the grievance. Deadlines are calculated and displayed automatically, so no critical date slips through.
• Dashboards and schedulers. A single dashboard surfaces upcoming steps, overdue items, and priority actions across the caseload.
• Centralized membership and dues. Demographic updates from county and municipal offices flow into one record, linked directly to dues history.
• Custom reports and queries. Staff can filter member and case data (for example, active members by employer) and export results to Excel for ad-hoc analysis.
• Mobile-friendly access. Case managers in the field can read and update case information from any device.

A single platform for the whole UPE operation

Beyond unifying case management and membership, UPE now uses a range of integrated tools within eMembership:

• Bulk email and SMS union communications sent directly from member data, without external mailing tools
• Custom union administration reports with filtering and Excel export
• Case dashboards and schedulers that surface overdue items and priority actions
• Union electronic signatures for membership applications and authorizations
• A union member portal and labor union app for member self-service (rollout in progress)
• Mobile access for case managers working in the field

Real-time visibility across members and cases

With eMembership, UPE now operates from a unified, real-time view of both membership and case information, something that was impossible under the legacy setup.

• One real-time view. Member and case data live together, with no manual synchronization between systems.
• Less duplicate work. Administrative efficiency improved by eliminating duplicate data entry and manual deadline tracking.
• Priority cases surfaced automatically. Case managers and leadership identify priority cases and upcoming deadlines from a single dashboard.
• Direct member communication. Targeted email and SMS communications go out without exporting data to external tools.
• Self-service on the horizon. The member portal and mobile app are planned for rollout, expanding what members can do on their own.