Craig Becker was born on November 14, 1956,[citation needed] to Ruth and Sam Becker; his mother, who had fled Nazi Germany through England in 1939, was a nurse and community activist, and his father was a World War II veteran who became a professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa.
He then worked at Kirschner, Weinberg & Dempsey (1983–1989), a law firm located in Washington, D.C., and represented members of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and its affiliates, including the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers.
[7] On March 27, 2010, President Obama made a recess appointment of Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.
[11] After leaving the National Labor Relations Board, he taught at Georgetown Law School and then was named General Counsel of the AFL–CIO.
[citation needed] Becker resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Amy Dru Stanley, a history professor at the University of Chicago.