Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Robbie Hunter

Top 100 Hall of Fame

Before he retired in 2021, Robbie Hunter was widely considered one of the most powerful labor figures in the state. That sure sounds like a Top 100 Hall of Famer, doesn’t it? For nearly nine years, Hunter served as the president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, which is affiliated with unions representing 450,000 workers. Hunter first appeared on the Top 100 in 2013, at No. 55. Two years later, he was in the top 10 and remained there through the duration of his career. The last time he appeared on the list, in 2021, he was No. 6 — the highest ranked labor leader. Before his election to the state council, Hunter served as Executive Secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. He apprenticed as a steel erector working in the Harland & Wolff shipyards, where his great-grandfather John Quinn was a union organizer (and built cranes for the Titanic). Hunter’s world was rooted in unions and his Irish heritage: his great-grandpappy used to regale him with stories about the famed Irish labor leader James Connolly sleeping on the family couch. Fearless and hard charging, Hunter had no compunction about picking fights, like when he called out Newsom for booting him off of a work commission or when he smacked Capitol Weekly for inviting a speaker he didn’t like to one of our forums. He was a classic labor leader through and through.

Updated Aug. 9, 2o26