Gerald McEntee

His detractors, and there are many, say Gerald “Jerry” W. McEntee is an arrogant egoist, disliked by many union leaders, but even within that group, many have a grudging respect for him as a smart, hard-working leader. His admirers, and there seem to be more in this category, say, sure, McEntee is extremely self-confident, but that makes him a strong labor leader and effective in pressing for an ever-increasing role of unions in politics. He does seem almost consumed by politics and labor’s role in it.

McEntee, president of the 1.3-million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees--one of the nation’s largest unions--is vice president of the AFL-CIO and head of its political committee that poured more than $35 million into President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign, support that was critical to the race. Most of his colleagues on the AFL-CIO executive council, and Steve Rosenthal, the federation’s professional political director, also wanted to give labor a more significant role in the campaign, but McEntee was the principal architect of that plan.

He is seeking more political allies in the minority and liberal communities, and has been partly successful. But the old liberal-labor-minorities alliance that was so important within the coalition that elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman has almost disappeared. McEntee’s goal is to revive it.

He has the right connections to do it. He is vice president of the liberal Americans for Democratic Action and co-founder and chairman of the progressive think tank, the Economic Policy Institute. In addition, his union’s membership is almost 50% women and minorities.

Born in Philadelphia in 1935, McEntee was among the first top labor leaders to earn a college degree. He was first elected president of AFSCME in 1981. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Washington.

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Question: Some union leaders are disappointed with President Clinton’s continuing effort to get to the political center. Is that a widespread feeling in the AFL-CIO?

Answer: I don’t think it’s a widespread view of American labor leaders, and it’s not mine, either. He’s defending Medicare and Medicaid as entitlements. Education is at the top of his agenda, and it is certainly at the top of the labor movement’s agenda. We worked hard to elect [Bill] Clinton and [Al] Gore and progressives at every level of government. We have already started to do even more in the next elections in every part of the country.

Q: Meaning what?

A: We must get more political activity in terms of money, of course, but we must get more labor members and our supporters into the field, to register voters and get them to the polls to vote. We must do more than ever to educate our members, and all workers, about the true meaning of political issues and let them know which candidates are going to help working people, not just the rich. In other words, we want a vast expansion of our political activities.

Harry Bernstein covered labor issues for The Times for 32 years. He interviewed Gerald W. McEntee from his office in Washington.

Q: Vice President Gore says he agrees with the president’s goal to stay in the center of the political spectrum. If that is not where the AFL-CIO leaders want to be, will it be pushing for a more liberal presidential candidate in the next election?

A: We have to look where the Clinton administration goes, and Gore is part of the administration. Our position will depend on where they go over the next couple of years. I was tremendously impressed by the presentation Gore made on behalf of himself and the president at the recent AFL-CIO executive council in Los Angeles. It was one of the most pro-union, pro-worker statements I’ve ever heard on behalf of this administration.

Q: Did Clinton himself ever say anything like that?

A: He has said things close to it, and I was very impressed by Gore, but I was also very impressed by Rep. Dick Gephardt at our meeting.

Q: You spent substantial sums of money--at least $35 million--to help Democrats regain the majority of the House and the Senate in 1996. That failed. So was the expenditure worth so much of labor’s money?

A: Oh, I think that was the best money that was ever spent in terms of the American labor movement. For the first time I can remember, the American labor movement was a crucial part of the national debate on issues like the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid and education. We saw the minimum wage passed in a right-wing, conservative-dominated Congress.

Q: But the president signed the welfare bill. Were you disturbed by that?

A: Yes. We communicated with the White House and asked him not to sign it. On the other hand, we found some solace in the fact that when he signed it, he promised to return to that issue and others--like the food-stamp program and help for legal immigrants. He has also proposed in his budget $3 billion more to create real jobs, meaningful jobs, for people coming off the welfare roles. So, on the one hand, we opposed his signing the welfare-reform bill, but, on the other, we applauded him for the position of trying to go back and change it and to help create more jobs.

Q: About a fourth of union members support Republicans their unions oppose. Is that fair to the minority of GOP supporters who are in unions?

A: Well, we think it’s fair. Our political endorsements represent the majority opinion of our members. Also, unions notify members what portion of their dues goes for politics, what percentage goes to legislation, what percentage goes toward organization. Then any member, or agency fee payer, who does not agree with our positions can get that portion of their dues refunded. Out of our 1.3 million members in AFGE, we had only 17,000 who wanted that portion of their dues back--and we refunded it.

Q: What will happen to union political action if campaign-reform legislation passes that forbids giving so-called soft money that you use to tell members about labor’s positions on issues and on legislation but also helps elect mostly Democrats?

A: I think that would be devastating, not just to the American labor movement, but to the form of democracy we’ve pursued in this country. If they’re going to pass a law that prevents the American labor movement from educating their members on issues or on how politicians vote on issues, it would be a dangerous infringement on not only the right of the American labor movement, but on the right of free speech of everyone.

Q: You’ve said labor has positioned itself too much as the defender of the status quo. What does that mean politically?

A: I was referring to the campaign for changing the leadership of the AFL-CIO, for getting the federation moving in terms of organization of new workers and doing more political action. We now see, for example, the building trades, which for many years did not organize new workers, starting out to do just that. We now see more political activism by unions than at any time in recent years. The labor movement should be for change, should go after the organizing of more minorities and women, and getting young people working with and on behalf of the American labor movement in organizing new members and in politics.

Q: You helped elect John Sweeney as president of the AFL-CIO. Why?

A: We didn’t have a federation that was on the go. It had, institutionally, stood still for any number of years. We had a dwindling of membership without any offsetting activity. We saw our political influence and strength on the wane. We weren’t risk-takers. I wanted to change that. In 1996, we had the same percentage of the work force that we had in 1995, but yet we were major political players in 1996, as evidenced by the fact that the right-wing Republicans were running commercials against us. You never heard the words “union” or “AFL-CIO” mentioned as often before 1996. With the program we put into effect, 25% of the voters who voted in 1996 were union members or members of households of union members. That was the highest percentage that the American labor movement has had in 25 years.

Q: In the past, you and your union were regarded as one of the most progressive, liberal unions in the federation. You seem to have modified your position by supporting the president’s centrist position. Doesn’t that make you less liberal and less progressive?

A: No. It just makes us more pragmatic. When Lane Kirkland was still AFL-CIO president, he tried to get labor’s endorsement for Tom Harkin for president in the Democratic primaries because of his excellent record. There were three unions that wanted to support Clinton. One was my own. We supported him because we were tired of losing. We felt that we wanted the nominee who would be in support of workers’ issues 60%, 65% of the time--not necessarily 100% of the time, but had at least a reasonable chance of capturing the White House.

It would be great to support a candidate who says everything we want, but if they don’t get inside that White House, and if you can’t have access and an open door to talk about your problems, then that isn’t worth three cents. We didn’t think Tom Harkin could win the presidency. So we backed Bill Clinton.

If a George Bush had won, and then, in 1994, the Republicans were able to capture the Senate and the House of Representatives the way they did, can you imagine what would have happened to working people?

Q: Do you think you might frighten away moderate voters and politicians who would be afraid of a politically powerful labor movement?

A: Certainly not. Not when we explain that our goal is to help the country as a whole, and working people, who are obviously the largest majority in this country, to end the increasing gap between the rich, the overpaid corporate executives and the rest of us. That should not be too hard to do, as the gap between the very wealthy and the average person becomes more and more evident. As for union members, there is an old saying that what we can gain at the bargaining table with employers, we can lose in the halls of Congress and in state and local governments. I think labor is, once again, on the move under our new president, and we will succeed if we can again reunite that old coalition of liberals, labor and minorities. We are well aware of the fact that, as of now, labor is not strong enough to beat back the attacks on the American people by right-wing forces, and we would not want to even try. We really want a United States of America.*