In West Seattle, workers from the unions of the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council (SBCTC) are in the middle of a major green construction project that will convert an area that sat vacant for more than five years into a nearly 200-unit rental property.

The $48 million Youngstown Flats project, funded by the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust (BIT), will be completed in the spring and is bringing a big boost to the local economy. Last week, BIT officials and local labor leaders took time off to honor the workers at a ceremony and special luncheon on site for “dedicating their time and skills to making this building project a reality.

Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

How can you help your union get better coverage in small-town media? 

First, try getting to know the newspaper, TV and radio reporters. Introduce yourself by calling them up or sending them an email with your photo. It’s a good idea to put a face with an email. Better yet, drop by for a visit. 

New members were elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning. Sean McGarvey, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), will fill the seat of former President Mark Ayers, and Laura Reyes, secretary-treasurer for AFSCME, will fill the seat of retiring AFSCME President Gerry McEntee. AFSCME President Lee Saunders was named chair of the Executive Council Political Committee.

A little more than a day before the nation’s highway and transit projects would lose funding—threatening nearly 2 million jobs—and student loan interest rates were set to double, Congress acted.

The House (373-52) and Senate (74-19) this afternoon passed the two-year, $120 million Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012 that will protect more than 2 million jobs and expand a loan guarantee program that could create an additional 1 million jobs (mostly in the construction sector). The bill also keeps interest rates for college students on subsidized Stafford Loans at 3.4 percent. They were set to double on July 1 to 6.8 percent.

William Plotner waited for his daughter’s second birthday to enroll in the military on Sept. 11, 2004—three years after the World Trade Center twin towers fell. He wanted his daughter to remember the significance of her birth date. But most of all, he wanted her to think of him as a hero. Now Plotner, a U.S. Army veteran and member of the Laborers (LIUNA) Local 79, is rebuilding the World Trade Center.

Says Plotner:

On 9-11-04 I swore in. And now I get to work here. It brings, like, another sense of pride.

Brent Booker, former director of the Construction Department at the Laborers' (LIUNA) is the new secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD). He was elected today by the BCTD’s Governing Board of Presidents. Booker succeeds Sean McGarvey, who was elected BCTD president following the April death of Mark Ayers.

James Gilbert is director of the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council.

As I sat down to write a blog post for Memorial Day for the Union Veterans Council, I could not help but remember our chairman and friend Mark Ayers who passed away last month. It seems only fitting that on this weekend that we remember those service members that gave the ultimate sacrifice that we remember him and his words. His statement from 2010 is one of the most poignant expressions of what Memorial Day means to the families of the fallen, fellow veterans and what it should mean to our country. I feel that this Memorial Day it is more than appropriate to share the words of former Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) President Ayers again.

President Obama had a question for the delegates to the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department’s (BCTD) annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C.

What’s a better way to make our economy stronger?  Giving another tax break to every millionaire and billionaire in the country?  Or building the roads and bridges and broadband networks that will help our businesses sell more goods around the world?

Sean McGarvey, who has served as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) since 2005, was elected president today by the BCTD’s Governing Board of Presidents. He succeeds Mark H. Ayers who died April 8.

Tributes continue to come in for Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), who died unexpectedly April 8 at age 63. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls Ayers an “extraordinary leader and friend.”