Public Employee Press

Nola Brooker named to head DC 37’s Professional Division

On Aug. 31, Nola Brooker was promoted to director of the DC 37 Professional Division.

Brooker’s long road to this point began with a civil service career at the Health and Hospitals Corp. where she joined Social Service Employees Union Local 371. Brooker became a union activist and served as a shop steward at Harlem Hospital. Local 371 hired her as an organizer. In 1981, members elected her vice president for organizing and union education, a position she held for 14 years.

In 1997, Brooker came to DC 37 as a council rep, working with Local 768 in the Professional Division. After two years, she became an assistant director in the Research and Negotiations Dept, and in 2008 she moved back to the Professional Division as assistant director.

She traces her love of unions back to her childhood, when her father, a Teamster working in construction, brought her to union meetings. “Even when he went to the union to get his dues book stamped, he took me with him,” she said.

“I’m happy to be back in the Professional Division. The union helps change peoples’ lives — not just their wages and benefits,” said Brooker, who calls her work “a labor of love. The gratification of the job is in the people we help.”