Bricklayers New President

Boland Succeeds Flynn As Bricklayers President: By voice vote, the Bricklayers board agreed on February 22 to immediately elevate union Secretary-Treasurer James Boland to the presidency, succeeding John J. Flynn, who retired that day. Boland, a Bricklayer since 1977, has been Secretary-Treasurer of the 100,000-member union since 1995.  In his first decade as a unionist, Boland worked in brick, block, stone and marble in the San Francisco Bay area.  He then became business agent for Local 3 in California, before ascending to the local union’s presidency.  In 1994, Boland joined the BAC headquarters staff, where he became field director for California and Nevada before his election to the international union’s board and elevation to the Bricklayers’ #2 job. The Bricklayers board named incumbent Executive Vice President Henry Kramer, a Chicago-area native, to succeed Boland as Secretary-Treasurer.  Kramer, a member of Local 74 in Carol Stream, Ill., and a third-generation Bricklayer, started an apprentice from 1974-1977, then worked for 11 years as a journeyman bricklayer, stonemason and foreman, plus serving as head instructor of the Carol Stream, Ill.-based Bricklayers apprentice school.  From 1978-2005, Kramer was recording secretary, president and business manager for Local 74.  He joined the international union’s headquarters as Central Region director in 2005. AFSCME’S Lucy To Retire: Published reports in Albany and Philadelphia say AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy (l), one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving African-American officers in the labor movement, will retire. The union did not confirm the reports, but did not deny them, with a spokesman saying the decision would be up to the union’s convention this summer.  Lucy was re-elected to another 4-year term as Secretary-Treasurer in 2008. Lucy, now 76, has been AFSCME’s Secretary-Treasurer, it’s #2 post, since 1972. He is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, representing both AFSCME and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), which he founded and presides over. A Memphis native, Lucy was involved in the AFSCME sanitation workers’ organizing drive there that brought Dr. Martin Luther King to Memphis in 1968.  “In the tumultuous aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination, Lucy helped maintain the labor-civil rights-community coalition that sealed the workers' victory and became the model used throughout the nation,” CBTU says. A civil engineer by training, Lucy was member and president of AFSCME’s local in Contra Costa County, Calif., for 13 years before taking national union posts.  His bio also notes Lucy co-founded the successful U.S. campaign against South African apartheid.  And he is a key link between labor and the civil rights movement.  Like Lucy, NAACP President Julian Bond -- another such key link -- is retiring. - Press Associates, Inc.; photo (right) courtesy BAC website; photo (left) courtesy April 4th Foundation