Dominic Massa / Eyewitness News
BATON ROUGE – Longtime Louisiana labor leader Victor Bussie, who led the AFL-CIO for more than four decades, died Sunday, according to WAFB-TV. He was 92.
His wife told the Associated Press that Bussie died of complications from surgery for stomach cancer.
He retired in 1997 as the 41-year unopposed president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO and was often described as one of the most significant non-elected officials in Louisiana politics. In an editorial marking his retirement, the Baton Rouge Advocate suggested that "Bussie might well be the most powerful Louisianan never elected to public office."
His involvement in labor unions grew out of his job as a firefighter. He joined the Shreveport Fire Department after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
He helped grow the labor unions in Louisiana, which soon became one of the most unionized states in the country. That would be diminished by the passage of a right-to-work law in 1976, however.
Bussie was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame. A member of countless boards and commissions during his career, he was a former member of the LSU board of supervisors and the University ofLouisiana System board, and received an honorary degree from Southeastern Louisiana University.
Funeral arrangements were not yet announced.
