President, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

Gerald W. McEntee is the International President of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the most aggressive and politically active organizing unions in the AFL-CIO. McEntee was first elected AFSCME President in 1981 and was re-elected in June 2004 for a seventh consecutive four-year term.

As a Vice President of the AFL-CIO, a member of its Executive Council, chair of the federation's Political Education Committee, and a member of its Organizing and Public Relations Committees, McEntee plays a key role in the leadership of the labor movement. Under McEntee's direction, the AFL-CIO created its highly successful voter education campaigns, which helped increase the number of union household voters to a record 26 percent of the electorate in 2000 (up from 19 percent in 1992). Under McEntee's leadership, AFSCME has become the nation's most politically active union.

McEntee has long been a leader in the fight to reform the nation's health care system. President Clinton named McEntee to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Quality and Consumer Protection in the Health Care Industry in 1997.

McEntee is a co-founder and chairman of the board of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, the preeminent voice for working Americans on the economy. He has led efforts to strengthen and improve such workplace standards as the minimum wage, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

For his efforts to improve the lives of working families, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights presented McEntee with its prestigious Hubert Humphrey Award in 2004.

Before assuming the presidency of AFSCME, McEntee began his distinguished career in 1958 as a labor leader in Pennsylvania. As a union organizer in Philadelphia, he became the successful architect of the major public service drive to unionize more than 75,000 Pennsylvania state employees, which was at that time the largest union mobilization in history. He was elected Executive Director at the founding convention of AFSCME Council 13 in Pennsylvania in 1973 and as International Vice President of AFSCME in 1974.

McEntee holds a bachelor's degree in economics from LaSalle University in Philadelphia. A native of Philadelphia, McEntee and his wife Barbara live in Washington D.C.