Gregg James is District 8 National Vice President of the American Federation of Government Employees, representing federal employees in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. James was first elected to the position in May 2017.
After retiring from the Air Force with 23 years of military service, James continued his public service to the country by joining the Defense Contract Management Agency in Van Nuys, Calif. AFGE helped James get transferred to the DCMA facility in Utah, over the objections of his supervisor, after a year of commuting 160 miles roundtrip. He joined AFGE the first day he got to Utah and quickly became a union activist, leading two AFGE locals before getting elected to AFGE Council 170 representing all DCMA workers.
James was instrumental in winning an arbitration in which DCMA employees were given bad information that hurt their retirement income. During a reorganization, several employees were told to either move or retire. Of the 64 people, 22 took the buyout. The local later found out the agency didn’t follow its own rule of reassigning personnel by seniority. It subsequently took the agency to arbitration and won $50,000 for each of the employees who retired due to the bad information.
James was elected president of AFGE Local 2118 in Utah in 2003 and Local 2265 in Minneapolis in 2012. After that, he became DCMA Council 170’s West Vice President and Executive Vice President. He was elected president of the Council in 2015.