Gerald W. McEntee, the longtime president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFL-CIO), who led the union to historic growth, positioning it as a voice for working people and a force to be reckoned with in the nation’s civil rights movement, and who went toe to toe with U.S. presidents in defense of public services, passed away Sunday at his home in Naples, Florida. He was 87.
So much of a giant in the labor movement and progressive politics was McEntee that former President Bill Clinton once remarked “he had the heart of a lion,” and that if Clinton was ever in a foxhole, McEntee was the person he wanted with him, while former President Barack Obama noted that McEntee “built AFSCME into such an important force for change.”
But such praise always struck McEntee – the plainspoken boy from Philadelphia’s working-class Swampoodle neighborhood – as too grandiose. From the fight for affordable health care for all to the struggle to preserve workers’ rights to come together and bargain for safe working conditions and fair wages in a union, McEntee spoke the language of working men and women. And with that voice, that force and will to bring change, and that lion’s heart, he got results.
Among McEntee’s lasting achievements as president of AFSCME was the development of a national political program that became the most sophisticated in the American labor movement. Through a combination of grassroots activism, innovative tactics and shrewd strategy, McEntee positioned AFSCME as a prominent political force in progressive politics. In recognition of his acumen, McEntee was tapped by successive presidents of the AFL-CIO to lead its political committee.
Whether taking on corrupt local garbage contracts or outsourcing boondoggles or an unjust prisons-for-profit pipeline, McEntee led the fight against privatization and contracting out to protect vital public services. At every turn, from shop floors and union halls across the country, to the halls of Congress and the White House, he pushed back on the false promises of privatization. When then-President George W. Bush threatened to privatize Social Security, McEntee mobilized an army of AFSCME retirees and working members – the famed AFSCME “Green Machine” – to show up at every planned stop on the president’s road show, speaking out and up against the misguided agenda.
In 2011, he helped establish a massive campaign to go on offense against attacks on public service workers in states across the country - a pivotal moment that many credit with helping to reverse labor’s slide in popularity, which today stands at a 50-year high.