From his first days as an apprentice with Local 1 Missouri of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers in 1952, John Flynn learned the lessons that would make him a successful union leader. For 20 years as a journeyman, foreman and superintendent, the hallmark of his construction was skill, meticulous care and detailed planning. It was built to last. Buildings with his brickwork stand today in his hometown of St. Louis, as strong as the day they were constructed.
Flynn has brought those same qualities to his career as a union activist and leader of the BAC. Over the past 40 years, he served his union at every level: business agent and then business manager of his home local, director of trade jurisdiction for the international, executive vice-president, secretary-treasurer and, since 1999, president. He has worked to build his union not for next week or next year, but for generations to come.
High-quality training, for example, is crucial for bricklayers and the other trowel trades, and under Flynn's leadership, the BAC has dramatically expanded its training programs. Every BAC member now has access to high-quality training, from the first time he or she picks up a tool during a pre-apprenticeship program until the time he or she decides to put the tools away and pursue other interests—and even then, members have educational opportunities through the BAC University. As Flynn appreciated early on, lifelong training would grow more critical for his members, from obtaining the 10-Hour OSHA card to learning new sets of skills for green building. He acted on that insight, and BAC members will benefit for years to come.
John Flynn also built for the future through a strong commitment to organizing. In an industry in which irresponsible employers routinely try to thwart workers' freedom to choose unions, Flynn understood that the top priority of his union is supporting bricklayers and other workers in the trowel trades who are struggling to organize into the BAC. He led a campaign inside the BAC to devote a dollar per member every month to fund the union's organizing efforts.
Organizing heads up Flynn's legacies to the BAC, but there are many others—stewards training, new member orientation, labor-management craft committees, the National Training Center, health care purchasing coalitions and much more.
Solidarity with the entire union movement has been yet another career-long signature of Flynn's leadership, one the AFL-CIO Executive Council has seen first-hand. His work on the Council—his service on the committees on Immigration, International Affairs, Organizing, Political Education and Article 20 Appeals—reflects a deeply held belief that, as he said years ago, "the day you joined the union, you became part of something bigger."
After nearly 60 years in the union movement, John Flynn is laying down his tools. We congratulate him on a lifetime of service in the union movement, and we are in his debt for helping the AFL-CIO do what he has always done so well—building for the future.