The laborers' union has rejoined the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Dept., after being away from the group for more than two years, say the BCTD and the union.

The BCTD says that its governing board unanimously voted to approve the re-affiliation of the union, whose full name is the Laborers' International Union of North America. LIUNA left the BCTD in February 2006. The union also left the AFL-CIO in 2006 and remains unaffiliated with it.

LIUNA President Terence M. O'Sullivan says, O'Sullivan says his union and the BCTD had mutually resolved issues about how to settle inter-union jurisdictional disputes, covering which union can do certain types of work on jobsites, as well as the issue of unions' relative voting weight within BCTD, based on the number of members.

"We left the building trades for principled reasons and we are going back for principled reasons," says O'Sullivan.

BCTD President Mark H. Ayers, who became the building trades' head last October, says, "We are extremely pleased to have [LIUNA] back once again as an important part of the building trades family."

Two other construction unions that had left the BCTD--the carpenters and operating engineers--remain disaffiliated.