The RI AFL-CIO has a new president. Here’s what you need to know.

PROVIDENCE – After twenty years on the front lines of organized labor in Rhode Island, Patrick Crowley won elections on Monday evening as the new president of the 80,000-strong state AFL CIO for the remainder of the term of his predecessor George Nee.

The huge and influential union’s board of directors voted at the National Education Association’s offices in Cranston, where Crowley, 51, served for decades first as a labor organizer and eventually as political director before rising to become the union’s secretary-treasurer. AFL CIO in 2020.

The organization also elected Karen Hazard, current president of the Rhode Island Laborers’ District Council and business manager of LiUNA Local 808, as secretary-treasurer.

Who is Pat Crowley?

As The Journal reported late last year, Crowley first made headlines in Rhode Island by rushing in then-Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee a George W. Bush mask and flight suit.

He later revealed then-Gov. Don Carcieri’s inability to pay $12,000 in property taxes on his luxury condominium in Florida.

Crowley, who once described himself as a “punk kid with a good imagination,” had many roles worth citing in union activities, teacher contracts, debates over high-stakes education financing, strikes and other public actions on the way to to become the biggest. No. 2 at the AFL-CIO.

What happened during the meeting?

Heading into Monday night’s vote, Crowley faced no outright opposition, although there was always the possibility of an eleventh-hour nomination.

In addition to voting for Crowley, the board has made a choice Karen Hazard replaces Crowley as No. 2: Secretary-Treasurer.

Hazard is a former business manager, president and member of the board of directors of Laborers Local 1134 at Zambarano Hospital and also served Laborers Local 808 as a field representative, representing DOT, DMV, EMA, city hall employees, school department employees and police dispatchers. , including 911 operators and Zambarano employees. One of her most recent positions: chair of the Rhode Island Laborers District Council.

Going deeper: background information on the leadership change

In an email to fellow union members ahead of Nee’s planned retirement on Oct. 11, Crowley said of Nee: “Our labor movement is influential and powerful in Rhode Island in large part because of George’s leadership… He has been an inspiration to generations. of union organizers and activists, and personally both a mentor and hero of mine.”

When Nee retired, Crowley, as secretary-treasurer, automatically assumed the duties of the president on an interim basis until the board of directors held a special meeting to elect a new president until the next scheduled convention of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO in the United States. fall 2025.

In his September email to fellow union members, Crowley wrote, “Since I was elected Secretary-Treasurer in February 2020, I believe the Rhode Island AFL-CIO has demonstrated the value of organized labor to our member companies, the members and for all working people. people in the Ocean State We have seen historic victories at the ballot box, at the General Assembly, on the picket lines, and in organizing campaigns.

Citing “our work with Climate Jobs Rhode Island” as an example, he said, “We are leading the way, not only in protecting the environment, but also in ensuring that these emerging jobs in this sector are union jobs. We also played an important role. in enacting legislation that benefits all Rhode Islanders, including protecting voting rights, gun safety, and paid leave.

“As George likes to say, we really are ‘the People’s Lobby’, and as I said when you elected me in 2020, ‘if we fight, we win,’” he continued.

In November 2023, The Journal described Crowley as follows: “Policy mistake, megaphone-wielding rioter, author (“The Battle of the Tombstones and the Saylesville Massacre of 1934”), former owner (2008-09) of a progressive blog – the now defunct RIFuture – and online yoga teacher during COVID.”

Crowley becomes only the fifth person to lead the state’s largest union federation since its founding in 1958.

Hazard becomes only the second woman, and first person of color, to hold executive office in the state federation’s history. Their term runs until the fall of 2025.

Crowley released the following statement: “Thank you to all the members of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO for electing me president. It is the honor of a lifetime to serve the working class of Rhode Island in this capacity. I know that with your support, Sister Hazard and I can work with all of you to keep the labor movement in Rhode Island strong and vibrant.”

This article originally appeared in The Providence Journal: AFL-CIO selects veteran labor leader Patrick Crowley as its new president