John Brooks

Biography

John Brooks is a former state labor commissioner. 

Early Life and Education

John Charles Brooks was born Jan. 10, 1937, in Greenville, N.C., to Frederick and Octavia Brooks. His father was a college physician at East Carolina Teachers College (now University), and his mother was a high-school English teacher.

He graduated from Greenville High School in 1955. 

He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in economic and political science from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1959. He then earned a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1962.

Early Career 

Brooks worked as a clerk for N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Bobbitt from 1962 to 1963. 

From 1963 to 1965, he worked for Gov. Terry Sanford's administration on race relations, leading a statewide response to racial conditions in the wake of sit-ins and other protests. 

In 1965, he worked as staff attorney for the North Carolina Fund in Durham, a five-year antipoverty campaign sponsored by the Ford Foundation.  

From 1965 to 1968, he worked for the Maryland Constitutional Convention Commission in Baltimore, Md., an unsuccessful effort to write a new state constitution.  

From 1969 to 1970, he was administrative officer of the N.C. General Assembly, hiring the first full-time staffers of the legislature and automate the bill-writing system.

In 1970, he served as executive assistant to the president of an Illinois constitutional convention. 

From 1971 to 1977, he served as an attorney in private practice. 

Political Career

Brooks served as the state labor commissioner from 1977 to 1993, making him one of the longest-serving elected labor commissioners in the United States.

In 1991, Brooks fined a Hamlet chicken-processing plant $808,150 for safety violations that he said contributed to a fire that killed 25 workers in 1990.

Brooks lost the 1992 Democratic primary for labor commissioner to Harry Payne, who argued that the plant fire revealed serious problems with the department.

Since leaving office, he has worked as a staff attorney for the N.C. Industrial Commission in the N.C. Department of Commerce.

2008 Campaign

In 2008, he was one of four candidates in the Democratic primary for labor commissioner.

He came in second to Mary Fant Donnan in the May 6 election and filed for a primary runoff.

His campaign centered on the need for the state to expand workplace safety investigations and increase high-skill training for workers. 

He lost the runoff election by nearly two-to-one to Donnan. 

Research and reporting by Ryan Teague Beckwith and Ames Alexander. 

Occupation

Brooks is a member of the Wake County Progressive Democrats, executive committee of the Wake County Democratic Party, The State Executive Committee of the N.C. Democratic Party, and the State Council of Review of the Democratic Party.

He attends the Edenton Street United Methodist church.  

He is a past president of Blount Street Historic
District Association.

Contact Info

Education

Military

Issues

How will you measure success in your first year in office?

"I will refocus the Department of Labor in a number areas including more active and effective occupational health and safety enforcement, more thorough inspections of amusement rides and initiation of more advanced skills training. I would like to offer skills training in the 650 separately skilled occupations for which North Carolina currently trains noone."

The  comissioner of labor very much needs to be an attorney because there needs to be representation of the people on the American Bar Association's labor laws committes. If not, we are out of loop because there's no representation there.

Tell us about something you did for someone else.

"One of my pet projects back in 1965 was
to get NC to adopt the Uniform Commerical Code. The importance of getting the state to adopt this legal code is to create a foundation on which North Carolina's banking industry thereafter flourished and became a national leader in banking. This is an example of the kinds of initiatives I have taken in the past. Locally, I created the Blount Street Historic Preservation society for the preservation of about 12 blocks of homes. I also worked to preserve the Seaboard Railroad Coastline building."  

What is the biggest challenge facing North Carolina? Your county? Your district?

"There are so many challenges and so large challenges that the question itself is a challenge. The national situation: diverting billions of dollars in the Iraqi war is essentially bankrupting America and
causing inflation in the economy and high fuel prices. I'm trained as an economist, and I'm very concerned about the economy. The economic situation looks
very much like it did when I first came into office in 1976. Getting the nation back on course is the biggest challenge. On the state level our challenge is to identify and provide accurate resources for all state agencies."

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