Labor On The Move: Building Trades Elect Laborers' Booker To Sec.-Treasurer's Post

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Leaders of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department elected top Laborers Union official Brent Booker as the department’s Secretary-Treasurer, its #2 post, on June 11. Booker (at right) succeeds Sean McGarvey, who became the department’s president when incumbent Mark Ayers unexpectedly died in April.  A third-generation Laborer, from Local 795 in New Albany, Ind., Booker has been the international union’s Construction Department Director for the last 11 years. In that post, Booker negotiated and administered all national agreements that involve the Laborers, and represented the Laborers in negotiations, several years ago, of the planned Project Labor Agreement for the proposed – but environmentally controversial – Keystone XL pipeline from the U.S.-Canada border to the Texas coast.