[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 18226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   TRIBUTE TO THE NEW JERSEY BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DONALD M. PAYNE

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 13, 2004

  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a landmark 
achievement of the hardworking men and women of New Jersey. This month, 
the New Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council will be holding 
its 100th convention at Caesar's Resort and Casino in Atlantic City, 
NJ.
  The skilled craftsmen and women of the building trades have formed 
the backbone of New Jersey's labor movement for more than two 
centuries. It was the building trades, in particular the carpenters at 
the Hibernia Iron Works in 1774, who were the first to band together 
and strike for better working conditions. It was the building trades 
unions who consistently provided for the city and county trade 
federations that formed in the mid-19th century, for New Jersey's 
Knights of Labor assemblies, and especially for the New Jersey State 
Federation of Labor that grew into New Jersey's AFL-CIO.
  The New Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council and its 
unions led the fight for the 8-hour day, better and safer working 
conditions, strong pension and health benefits, and a living wage.
  The NJBCTC and its unions built the modern State of New Jersey, from 
the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, to Newark Airport 
and the Meadowlands. They built the high-rise casinos that light up 
Atlantic City's skyline, the new skyscrapers rising up on Jersey City's 
Gold Coast, the hospitals in which we care for our sick, and the 
schools in which we educate our children.
  Mr. Speaker, the men and women of the New Jersey Building and 
Construction Trades Council and its unions deserve our gratitude, and I 
would like to offer my congratulations to President William Mullen and 
his vice presidents, representing each of the construction trades. I 
also invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing their predecessors 
who built the NJBCTC into what it is today, and to the tens of 
thousands of building trades craft unionists of generations past and 
present, who have built strong unions and a strong New Jersey.

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