For 31 years as president of AFSCME, Gerald McEntee has put his signature on every progressive change in America. He has made an art form of building power for working people. He may be known as Mr. Politics for his leadership as chair of the AFL-CIO Political Committee, but he has always spearheaded organizing, too. He has been the first to embrace new visions and new ideas—he co-founded the Economic Policy Institute, threw his passion into health care reform and became an early champion of Working America, helping drive its phenomenal growth and success. He also played a major role in stopping President George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.
McEntee never shrinks from a challenge or a fight for working families. But he deserves equal praise as guardian of the soul of the proud union that empowered Memphis sanitation workers to assert “I Am a Man”; the union that virtually trademarked the struggle for dignity for all work and just rewards for all workers; and the union that has enabled city, county and state workers to turn government jobs into the noble professions of public service that we know today. Under his tenure, AFSCME has gotten bigger, stronger and tougher—an engine of the American labor movement, an innovator and a leader.
Today, some politicians are trying to tear down public workers and knock down the bridge AFSCME helped build to the middle class. Thanks to Jerry McEntee’s leadership and vision, the Green Machine has dug deeper and done more to rebuild the American Dream and to remind America just how much it respects the people who actually do the work of our country.
On behalf of the 12 million working men and women of the AFL-CIO and the tens of millions more whose lives have been made better by his work, we congratulate McEntee as a relentless warrior for America’s working families, for which he has received many honors, including the prestigious Hubert H. Humphrey Award in 2004 from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
As Jerry McEntee retires, we will miss his booming voice, his outspoken honesty, his humor and his unwavering commitment to working families.