FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ryan Kekeris, 410-564-5884, rkekeris@iupat.org
On Sunday August 1st, 2021, The General Executive Board of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades voted unanimously to elect a new Executive Board helmed by Jimmy Williams Jr. as our new General President. Gregg Smith will serve as our new General Secretary-Treasurer. This comes after the retirement of General President Ken Rigmaiden and General Secretary-Treasurer George Galis on August 31.
Jimmy Williams Jr. enters as the youngest General President in IUPAT’s history, the youngest president of any building trades union in the United States and the youngest among unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Williams began his career with the IUPAT in 1998 as a glazier with District Council 21 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania before becoming our Organizing Director and General Vice President. Williams continues Rigmaiden’s legacy of ensuring our union is an organizing, fighting union and more recently has been a leading national figure for federal labor law reform and uniting the labor movement with social movements.
Our incoming General Secretary-Treasurer, Gregg Smith, is a 4th generation painter and 29-year member of our union. Smith’s first position of leadership came in 1997 as a Business Agent for District Council 58/LU 32 before becoming BMST at a young age for DC 58 where he sat on numerous trust funds and labor-management funds. Before coming on board at the International, Smith was the longest serving BMST in our union.
With the election of the new IUPAT leadership team, we are building off the lessons that our previous generations pioneered and fought for. Our union is excited and ready to usher in an era of aggressive organizing and political activism spearheaded by a new team of young, energetic leaders. Our new Executive Board is dead set on creating a historic chapter for our 140,000 members and all working people. Through our organizing all across the nation, we redouble our steadfast commitment to building union power in the year ahead and towards creating a labor movement future generations can all be proud and a part of.
THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES (IUPAT)
Represents a growing community of over 140,000 active and retired craftspeople in the United States and Canada. The IUPAT membership extends far beyond the workplace. Recognized as one of the most active unions in the labor movement, IUPAT members help shape their communities in many ways: through an abiding commitment to service, by fighting passionately for workers’ rights that benefit all working families, and through effective worker education and mobilization. Visit www.iupat.org to learn more.
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