Brent Booker, General President

Brent Booker became the 11th General President of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) on May 1, 2023. A University of Virginia graduate, and proud third-generation member of Laborers’ Local 795 in New Albany, Indiana, he has devoted his career to creating job opportunities for working men and women. The son and grandson of Laborers, growing up he saw the difference that union membership made in people’s lives, often breaking cycles of poverty and lifting entire families into the middle class.

During his first year as General President, Booker launched Laborers Rising, a union-wide initiative to mobilize members through their Local Unions to volunteer in their communities, advocate for pro-worker policies, support projects and jobs, campaign for pro-union candidates, and organize new members. Combining 21st -century technology such as social media and digital outreach with old-school organizing principles and member-to-member contact, Laborers Rising has reinvigorated LIUNA’s membership across the United States and Canada.

General President Booker also has continued and expanded the union’s commitment to growth through organizing, setting the ambitious goal of doubling the union’s size to one million members. Thanks to a 2006 resolution that devoted 25 cents per hour worked by Laborers to organizing, LIUNA has one of the largest organizing infrastructures in the labor movement today. The Union has been mobilizing this infrastructure to recruit new members, sign new contractors and employers, and increase its power. Building on this foundation, in 2024 Booker hosted LIUNA’s first annual organizing conference, which was attended by more than 400 organizers from across the United States and Canada, all focused on the union’s March to a Million.

General President Booker has crisscrossed the United States and Canada, visiting Regional Offices, District Councils, Local Unions, and work sites. He is committed to regularly meeting with, talking to, and hearing from, LIUNA’s rank-and-file members about the issues and concerns of greatest importance to them. 

Prior to his appointment as General President, Brent Booker served as LIUNA Vice President and Special Assistant to the General President. From 2012 to 2022, he served as Secretary-Treasurer of North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), where he helped strengthen and modernize the broad federation of 14 building trades unions in the United States and Canada. While at NABTU, he also served as Secretary-Treasurer of Helmets to Hardhats, an organization dedicated to helping military veterans transition to construction careers. Before moving to NABTU, Brent Booker served as Director of LIUNA’s Construction Department from 2007 to 2012, having worked there from 2001 to 2007. He began his career with LIUNA as an intern in the union’s mailroom.