John C. Brooks (born 1937) served as North Carolina Commissioner of Labor from 1977 to 1993. His tenure included the 1991 fire at a chicken-processing plant in Hamlet that killed 25 workers. Brooks fined the plant $808,150, which was the largest such penalty in state history, but which was criticized as insufficient. Brooks lost the 1992 Democratic primary for Commissioner of Labor to Harry Payne.
Brooks, a native of Greenville, North Carolina, is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (with a Morehead-Cain Scholarship), and the University of Chicago law school. He worked as an attorney and clerked for N.C. Supreme Court Justice William H. Bobbitt. He served on the staff of Governor Terry Sanford, worked as an administrative officer for the North Carolina General Assembly and assisted constitutional conventions in Maryland and Illinois before being elected Labor Commissioner in 1976.[1]
In 2008, at age 71, Brooks filed as a Democrat to run for Commissioner of Labor again. Brooks placed second in the May 2008 primary, but because no candidate garnered more than 40 percent of the vote, he was allowed to call for a runoff on June 24, with first-place finisher Mary Fant Donnan.[2] On the runoff election day, Brooks lost to Donnan, 68%-32%.[3] Voter turnout was 2%, setting a new record for low turnout in North Carolina.[4]