Gerald W. McEntee, the longtime president of one of many nation’s largest public worker labor unions, died on Sunday at his residence in Naples, Fla. He was 87.
His demise was confirmed by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), which he led from 1981 to 2012.
Because the union’s president, he helped broaden its energetic membership from about 1 million to over 1.2 million at its peak whereas main key fights towards the privatization of presidency packages.
However he was maybe finest identified for rising the affect of the labor motion in electoral politics throughout an age of largely Republican rule, as Washington turned more and more hostile to unions.
“He’s an vital determine in repositioning the union in politics,” stated Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown College who research public sector unions. “I believe his calling card greater than something was that he started to make use of the union’s political energy to actual issues that in an earlier period the union might need turned to strikes to actual.”
After Mr. McEntee turned president, the union started spending closely on state legislative races, reckoning that legislators have been vital each for the funding of public providers and for the once-per-decade redistricting that helps decide management of Congress.
Then, through the 1992 presidential marketing campaign, Mr. McEntee persuaded the union’s worldwide govt board to endorse Invoice Clinton, on the time the governor of Arkansas, whom many union officers considered much less labor-friendly than rival Democratic candidates, together with Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.
The formal endorsement appeared to come back within the late winter or early spring, however the union had signaled its assist weeks earlier, when many Democratic voters and parts of the celebration institution have been nonetheless skeptical of Mr. Clinton. The union’s backing helped Mr. Clinton painting himself as a suitable nominee inside the celebration who might finish 12 years of Republican management of the presidency.
“Harkin was a very good pal to labor — I don’t understand how anybody might have been a greater labor pal,” recalled Linda Canan Stephens, who labored within the union’s political division on the time. “However McEntee pushed this — you’ve gotten to have the ability to win. That’s the fact of the state of affairs.”
Not lengthy after backing John J. Sweeney to turn out to be president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in 1995, Mr. McEntee turned chairman of the federation’s political committee, successfully formalizing his position as a Democratic kingmaker. Steve Rosenthal, the committee’s high staffer on the time, recalled him as a gruff however supportive boss who was dedicated to increasing labor’s position in federal elections.
One in every of Mr. Rosenthal’s early shows to Mr. McEntee featured a plan to create a political mobilization equipment, together with organizers and phone-banking, that will function year-round, not simply within the months main as much as Election Day.
As Mr. Rosenthal recalled: “Once I completed, he stated, ‘That’s sensible — it’s essentially the most sensible factor I ever heard. And each 5 – 6 years, somebody is available in with that very same plan. I inform him how sensible it’s, and if they’ll determine tips on how to fund it year-round, go for it.’”
But Mr. McEntee moved aggressively to make A.F.L. funds accessible for political campaigns: greater than $30 million within the 1996 and 1998 election cycles and greater than $40 million in 2000.
“That was a far larger program than the A.F.L. had ever run, and we had a major quantity of success” Mr. Rosenthal stated, pointing to victories by Mr. Clinton and down-ballot candidates in 1996 and pickups for Democrats through the midterm elections of 1998, uncommon for a celebration that controls the White Home. “He drove that prepare.”
Within the 2000 presidential cycle, Mr. McEntee used his perch atop the A.F.L.’s political committee to assist safe an endorsement of Vice President Al Gore, who was then going through a robust problem from former Senator Invoice Bradley for the Democratic presidential nomination. The A.F.L. had hardly ever endorsed a candidate throughout a contested Democratic major, however Mr. McEntee believed it was vital to consolidate the labor motion behind Mr. Gore.
“Jerry had the view that try to be with people who find themselves with you, and try to be with them early, they usually’ll bear in mind, they’ll be pleased about it,” stated Steve Elmendorf, who labored carefully with Mr. McEntee within the Nineteen Nineties as a high aide to Rep. Richard Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri.
Not all of Mr. McEntee’s political bets labored out. In late 2003, he helped safe AFSCME’s endorsement of Howard Dean, the previous governor of Vermont, for the Democratic presidential nomination. Dr. Dean was additionally endorsed by the highly effective Service Workers Worldwide Union, however his marketing campaign ran aground shortly after his third place end within the 2004 Iowa caucuses.
Nonetheless, Democratic operatives stated the endorsement mirrored Mr. McEntee’s philosophy that labor wanted to take larger dangers in politics to stay related. “He understood that we wanted to be daring,” Mr. Rosenthal stated. “I believe the Dean factor was an instance of that.”
Gerald William McEntee was born on Jan. 11, 1935, in Philadelphia to William and Mary Josephine (Creed) McEntee. His father was a sanitation truck driver for the town who helped set up co-workers.
Mr. McEntee graduated from La Salle College in Philadelphia in 1956. After serving briefly within the Military, he went to work monitoring site visitors quantity at intersections for the Philadelphia Bureau of Site visitors Engineering, throughout which period he joined AFSCME.
He’s survived by his spouse, Barbara (Rochford) McEntee; his daughters, Patricia Gehlen, Kathleen Hammock and Kelly Hamlin; his sister, Mary Casale; 10 grandchildren; and 5 great-grandchildren.
Inside a number of months of becoming a member of AFSCME, Mr. McEntee turned a workers member of the union’s Philadelphia native council. In 1970, Pennsylvania handed a regulation permitting state staff to discount collectively, and Mr. McEntee helped persuade them to hitch AFSCME.
In 1973, he turned the highest workers member of the AFSCME council that represented the whole state; in that put up he helped negotiate a contract that included beneficiant medical insurance and prescription drug advantages. When the state tried to tug again from the settlement just a few years later, Mr. McEntee led a strike, one of many largest at that time in U.S. historical past involving public staff. The 2 sides settled inside just a few days.
Mr. McEntee was chosen to switch AFSCME’s longtime leader Jerry Wurf after his demise in December 1981; he gained a full time period as president in 1984. In response to the union, Mr. McEntee made gender pay fairness a precedence in contract bargaining through the Eighties.
All through a lot of his greater than 30-year tenure, Mr. McEntee performed a number one position resisting authorities cuts and privatization sought by Republican officers and a few average Democrats. He helped lead a successful campaign to defeat President George W. Bush’s proposal to partly privatize Social Security in 2005.
In 2011, when Wisconsin’s newly elected governor, Scott Walker, started looking for to roll again collective bargaining rights for public staff in that state, Mr. McEntee helped spearhead the opposition, which included large protests on the state capital.
“Jerry led the labor response to the assault in Wisconsin,” stated Larry Cohen, the president of the Communications Staff of America on the time, including, “He was virtually like a Paul Revere saying, ‘If this isn’t a wake-up name for all of us, what could be?’”
Partly on account of that alarm, Mr. Cohen stated, his personal union started holding month-to-month city corridor conferences involving tens of hundreds of store stewards.
The outcomes of those efforts have been blended. Mr. Walker was largely profitable in curbing bargaining rights in Wisconsin, and Republican governors and legislators later rolled the identical for public staff in close by states, like Michigan. In 2018 the Supreme Court docket dominated that authorities staff in any state might choose out of becoming a member of a union or paying a union payment, hanging down necessary charges in additional than 20 states. The choice led to a decline in union budgets.
However the unions undid a Wisconsin-style rollback of collective bargaining rights in Ohio by way of a poll measure in 2011, and such counter-mobilization of labor appeared to construct momentum, making a wave of extra aggressive labor activism later within the decade, particularly amongst lecturers.
“They weren’t solely ready for the sort of militant pushback that will include Walker and others,” stated Mr. McCartin, the historian. “To McEntee’s credit score, he did dig in as soon as it turned clear how that onslaught was taking place.”
