Eddie Eitches has served as President of Local 476 (HUD HQ) since 1999. Of 1,800 bargaining unit employees, 1,100 are members. Over forty years ago, Eddie began work as a community organizer in migrant camps. This spirit continues with the Local’s affiliation with DC Jobs with Justice, and support for Food and Friends (AIDS patients) and Head Start music and arts programs (Wolf Trap).

During the Bush Administration (2006-2008), the Local negotiated a progressive student loan repayment and child care subsidy program; maximum flexible and compressed work schedules (10/4; 6 AM start with 7:30 close; three day telework); and developed mandatory No Fear Act training (in conjunction with BIG). It proposed a free gym with incentives to encourage all to use the facility, affirmative action plans, and a clearinghouse to facilitate transfers within HUD and promote upward mobility. The Local successfully lobbied Congress to prevent the Bush-led HUD from terminating the Community Development Block Grant, HOPE VI and Senior Citizen Housing (Section 202) programs.

After President Obama took office and Shaun Donovan became HUD Secretary, the Local really flourished. Per agreement, employees were no longer required to go through magnetometers machines (a health hazard), transit subsidy was increased to up to $230 for all HUD employees, and gender equality was promoted (with Congressman Barney Frank). The Local is involved with major mission-related legislative initiatives. Secretary Donovan said at the transit subsidy ceremony, “Eddie has been an incredibly thoughtful, reliable, important partner in helping my team understand what’s working and what’s not working at HUD and what we can do to make the agency a better place for all of you, our valued employees, but also a more effective agency to serve the millions of American families who are suffering from the housing crisis that we see across this country today.”

Eddie came to HUD in 1978 as an attorney where he headed up a unit that focused on increasing Fannie Mae’s purchase of inner city mortgages. Eddie is currently paid as a Senior Trial Attorney for the Office of General Counsel but per the collective bargaining agreement, spends all his time on union work. Prior to coming to HUD, Eddie was employed at the Federal Trade Commission in 1974, where he served as a litigator, an attorney-adviser to a commissioner, and counsel to the FTC's Bureau of Economics. He was also an Assistant Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University where he taught antitrust economics. Eddie graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was Executive Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Law Review. He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia in New York City.

Eddie served as vice chair of the McLean Community Center, which has tax authority. He was President of the DC Phi Beta Kappa Association. He became involved with Africare in the 1970's when that organization was very young, and was president of Africare, DC for fifteen years. Eddie has served as President of AFGE Council 1, which is made up of AFGE Federal locals in the DC area. He was awarded the NAACP Fairfax County’s Community Service Award. In August 2009 he was awarded AFGE's highest award, the A. Philip Randolph-Hubert Humphrey Civil Rights Award.

Eddie is married to Rachel Birtha Eitches and they have four children: Etan, age 25, who attends Columbia Medical School in New York City; Eliana, age 18, a freshman at Columbia College; and twins, Naomi and Elyse, age 14, who are entering the eighth grade.