Lee Saunders

AFSCME International President

Friday morning general session.

Lee Saunders is the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, a union of 1.4 million public service workers. He was elected at AFSCME’s 40th International Convention in June 2012, after serving two years as the union’s secretary-treasurer.

Saunders began his career as a state employee in his native Ohio, where he was a member of the AFSCME-affiliated Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA). First joining AFSCME’s staff in the late 1970s as a labor economist, he has played a lead role in several major organizing campaigns, contract negotiations and political mobilizations across the country. Saunders has also served as administrator of a number of AFSCME councils and large locals, including District Council 37, New York City’s largest public employee union.

Saunders was raised in a union household in Cleveland, where his father was a city bus driver and a member of the Amalgamated Transit Union. He received a Master of Arts degree from Ohio State University in 1974, a year after earning his Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio University.

Saunders and his wife, Lynne, live in Washington, DC. They have two sons, Lee Jr. and Ryan, three grandsons and one granddaughter.