Stewart Acuff was named Director of Organizing for the AFL-CIO in October, 2002 by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who noted Acuff’s “strong leadership skills and a deep passion for the potential of unions to lift working people's lives.”

As organizing director, Acuff coordinates strategies to help working men and women join and form unions across the federation’s 53 member unions. He has been a community organizer and union organizer for 25 years, except for a brief stint as a truck driver. From 1977 to 1982, he worked as a community organizer in Missouri, Texas, Tennessee and New Hampshire for organizations affiliated with ACORN and Citizen Action.

In 1982, he joined the union movement as the organizing coordinator for the Service Employees International Union in Texas, where he was responsible for a campaign in which employees of 12 Beverly Enterprises nursing homes organized into the SEIU. In 1985, he became executive director of the Georgia State Employees Union/SEIU Local 1985. He helped build a union of 2,500 state workers despite the fact that public employees in Georgia had no collective bargaining rights, no dues check-off, no rights to meet and confer and no provisions for union recognition.

Acuff was elected president of the Atlanta Labor Council in 1991, where he served for nine years. In 2000, he joined the AFL-CIO staff as deputy director of field mobilization for the Midwest region. He served as deputy director of organizing from 2001 until becoming director.

Acuff writes and speaks extensively. He has written articles for the Atlanta Constitution, Labor Research Review, In These Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy and Focus Magazine, Labor Studies Journal, New Labor Forum and several Georgia newspapers. He also has written essays in Which Way for Organized Labor? (edited by Bruce Nissen) and Organizing for Justice in Our Communities (edited by Immanuel Ness and Stuart Eimer). He is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank Advisory Council, the National Steering Committee of Jobs with Justice, the First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta and numerous other organizations.

Acuff was born Dec. 17, 1954, in Trezevant, Tenn. He graduated from the University of Missouri magna cum laude with honors in sociology. He lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his wife, Mary Denham, and their children, Samuel and Sydney.

Blog Entries by Stewart Acuff

Fundamental Healthcare Reform Now.

Posted November 1, 2009 | 10:49 PM (EST)


It is beyond doubt that we are in a potentially historic moment of great change. In the last two years we've made huge change in America. Just four or five years ago after George W's re-election how many of us thought that in 2008 we would elect as President a...

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Maybe Conservatism is Dead?

21 Comments | Posted October 20, 2009 | 11:04 AM (EST)


It is more and more fun to read the newspaper stories, articles, blog posts, and the rest about the demise of conservatism and/or the Republican Party.

It is no wonder there is so much speculation. Just watch John Boehner or Mitch McConnell or the nightly news or catch a clip...

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America Needs Warriors for Justice

5 Comments | Posted October 2, 2009 | 10:47 AM (EST)


It is beyond doubt that we are living in a period of potentially great historical change in the United States.

Just a year ago we trade unionists, progressives, and Americans of good will made history with the election of an African-American President--something many of us never thought possible --...

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Time to Make History

Posted September 10, 2009 | 09:56 PM (EST)


It is so important to remember 9-11 and the union brothers and sisters who died that day. As you know, a lot of union brothers and sisters dies that day--members of HERE who worked in the restaurant, SEIU members, and every first responder was a union member--bus drivers who ATU...

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Labor Day Speech 2009 Duluth, MN

Posted September 9, 2009 | 11:22 PM (EST)


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Fighting the Radical Right

116 Comments | Posted August 16, 2009 | 07:48 AM (EST)


Some of us progressives mistakenly thought that when Barack Obama and his campaign and mandate for change won overwhelmingly last November and we picked up seats in the House and when Al Franken became the 60th Democrat in the Senate that the new government would enact the change that was...

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Crisis and Opportunity

Posted August 6, 2009 | 03:22 PM (EST)


The dog days of August have arrive, Washington has mostly cleared out and neither health care reform nor the Employee Free Choice Act have been passed. The Republicans, the Hard Right, and Corporate America are doing all they can to defeat them both. And they are being more than ably...

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The Church and the Employee Free Choice Act

7 Comments | Posted July 20, 2009 | 10:03 PM (EST)


I was on Fox News last week doing an interview with right-wing talking head Stuart Varney. He began what became a very hostile interview by charging that the labor movement is using Pope Benedict's Papal Encyclical for political purposes, part of our effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

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United Steelworkers and AFLCIO Lead Historic Arkansas March for Employee Free Choice Act

2 Comments | Posted July 14, 2009 | 09:44 AM (EST)


On Saturday, July 11, we made history in Arkansas. We -- civil rights and community leaders, local elected officials, and union activists and leaders, 1,500 of us-- held the largest ever demonstration in Arkansas to demand that Sen. Blanche Lincoln vote for and support the Employee Free Choice Act.

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Arkansas African-American Ministers and Elected Officials Will Lead Historic Community-Labor-Civil Rights March and Rally July 11 in Little Rock for Passage of Employee Free Choice Act

Posted July 9, 2009 | 09:21 PM (EST)


Judge and Rev. Wendell Griffin, Rev. Martha Blackmon of the Church of God in Christ, Bishop Kenneth Hicks, Rev. Gene McElroy of Greater Archview Baptist Church, State Sen. Joyce Elliott, and Arkansas Working America youth leader Willie Holmes will be featured speakers at an historic, huge march and rally Saturday,...

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Civil Rights Leaders Unite With Labor and Faith Leaders for Huge, Historic March and Rally July 11 to Pass the Employee Free Choice Act

1 Comments | Posted July 7, 2009 | 08:08 AM (EST)


Arlene Holt Baker, the first African-American executive officer of the AFL-CIO and widely known civil rights leader, will join other national labor, civil rights, and faith leaders in an historic march and rally this Saturday, July 11 in Little Rock, Ark.

National Electrical Workers President Ed Hill, Communications Workers of...

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The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

Posted June 26, 2009 | 08:47 AM (EST)


May you live in interesting times goes the old blessing. Well for all of us the times could hardly be more interesting. As Charles Dickens wrote in a Tale of Two Cities -- "It was the best of times and the worst of times."

The nation's economy is almost in...

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July 11th: Giant Employee Free Choice Act Events Across Arkansas

Posted June 18, 2009 | 01:03 PM (EST)


On Saturday July 11th, national AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka will join Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and hundreds of union and civil rights activists and faith leaders in a statewide caravan, march, rally and catfish fry in Arkansas to call for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Union members...

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Collective Bargaining For America

6 Comments | Posted June 14, 2009 | 10:07 PM (EST)


After trillions of dollars in federal spending to lift our economy out of the greatest economic crisis in 75 years, we now know that besides financial deregulation and insatiable greed, the biggest cause of our crisis is 30 years of stagnant and declining wages. We also know that we cannot...

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Broadening the Campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act

Posted June 8, 2009 | 09:28 PM (EST)


Today at noon Mayor Carl Redus of Pine Bluff, Arkansas hosted a meeting for the AFL-CIO with the Arkansas Conference of Black Mayors. Twenty or so mayors were at the lunch meeting at the Pine Bluff Ramada Conference Center.

The mayors agreed to write Senator Lincoln individual letters asking her...

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YouTube video clip of Little Rock rally for Employee Free Choice Act

Posted May 31, 2009 | 11:39 PM (EST)


The "Turn Around Arkansas" coalition held a 24-hour vigil for the Employee Free Choice Act on Wednesday, May 27.

The vigil began at Senator Blanche Lincoln's office in Little Rock where workers delivered hundreds of letters in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Arkansas' two Senators have already...

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New Tactics Emerge in Campaign to Pass the Employee Free Choice Act

Posted May 29, 2009 | 05:03 PM (EST)


The AFL-CIO has again intensified its national grassroots campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, adopting tactics and new strategies more familiar in social movements than in traditional legislative fights.

Unlike almost all recent legislative fights, the AFL-CIO has greatly relied on real, very close to the ground grassroots...

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4 AM: 24-Hour Vigil in Little Rock

3 Comments | Posted May 28, 2009 | 06:01 AM (EST)


It is almost 4am as I write this at the First Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, AR. We are almost halfway through our 24 hour vigil which began at the state headquarters of Senator Blanche Lincoln yesterday afternoon.

We are holding a 24 hour vigil for passage of the Employee...

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Take Action to Support Bakery Workers at Stella D'oro!

Posted May 25, 2009 | 08:48 PM (EST)


Our friends at BCTGM asked us to pass along info about this critical campaign, please take action.

In the Bronx, a group of bakery workers are locked in a death struggle with a private equity firm (Brynwood Partners, www.brynwoodpartners.com) over Stella D'oro cookie company which is emblematic of the...

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Debate with the Chamber of Commerce in Indiana

Posted May 21, 2009 | 08:25 AM (EST)


Nothing like having the truth on your side.

Here are complete clips of my debate the Chamber's Randy Johnson:

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