LIUNA Statement on the Death of Building Trades
President Mark Ayers

Washington, D.C. (April 9, 2012) – LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan issued the following statement in reaction to the sudden passing of Mark H. Ayers, President of the AFLCIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) on April 8:

It is with great sadness that I and the LIUNA General Executive Board, on behalf of our half-million members, offer heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and many union brothers and sisters of BCTD President Mark Ayers.

As leader of the BCTD, Mark was a true trade unionist and a valiant warrior for change. His death is a loss to us all.

Mark was a passionate and effective champion for strengthening the voice of construction workers and their families in government, on the job and within their own communities. Mark truly has left the labor movement and our country a better place than the way he found it.

It was the labor movement’s good fortune to have had Mark on our side all these years. The advancements he helped make for the rights of workers throughout North America will live on for generations to come.

While we are all saddened by his untimely death and he will be greatly missed, Mark will live on in the hearts he touched and with the working men and women whose lives he improved.

Mark was a credit to his family, his union and the entire labor movement. He was a good man and a great leader and I am proud to have called him my friend and my brother.