Jody Barr is the executive director of AFSCME Council 4, the union representing more than 30,000 public service workers throughout Connecticut. The Council 4 Delegate Assembly elected Barr, a member of AFSCME Local 2836, the State University Organization of Administrative Faculty (SUOAF), to serve a four-year term on May 11, 2018.
At the time of his election to Council 4, Barr was serving as SUOAF's president, a position to which Local 2836 members elected him in 2013. Through collaboration and team building, Barr helped the local build a stronger, member-centered legislative program to fight back against attacks on collective bargaining rights and efforts to cut resources from public higher education.
Local 2836, under Barr's leadership, also became one of the first Council 4 locals to embrace the AFSCME Strong mobilization program designed to engage members in support of their union through workplace conversations and meetings. Nearly 100 percent of SUOAF's 800 members signed union membership recommitment cards as a result.
Barr has worked for the Connecticut State University system since 1997, most recently at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, where he was employed as a voice system analyst. He holds a B.S. in industrial technology, with a concentration in technology management, from Central Connecticut State University.
In 2013, Barr was elected to serve as president of SUOAF, which represents 800 non-teaching faculty in the state universities and the Board of Regents. In 2017, he was appointed to complete the term of Clarke King as Council 4 president.
Barr served in the National Guard from 1996-2003. He is a member of the Council 4 Veterans Committee.
On July 19, 2018, delegates to the AFSCME 43rd International Convention in Boston elected Barr to serve on the union's International Executive Board representing the New England region.