To preserve the strength of our unionized construction industry, our objective must be to prevent problems between unions from disrupting our work sites and weakening our position in the industry.

Nationally, the Department and the governing board of presidents established a Tripartite initiative with the construction user's roundtable several years ago to work on industry issues of mutual concern to labor, to owners and to contractors.

As a result of our cooperative effort, initially championed by Joe Maloney and now under the direction of his successor, Secretary-Treasurer Sean McGarvey, I'm pleased to report that the Tripartite initiative successfully developed a national multicraft, drug-free workplace program and policy.

This program and policy establishes a single minimum testing standard to be utilized to conduct testing for illegal drugs, substances, and alcohol on current member job sites.

Last month, we began rolling out the new Building Trades Drug and Alcohol Testing Program, a multicraft centralized drug system. We are hopeful that all contractors, owners, and trades will take part in this innovative initiative. We believe it will make a positive difference for our members and the unionized industry.

I appreciate this opportunity to briefly mention a few issues that are very important to all Building Trades members and initiatives we are working on at the Department.

First, our fight to preserve Davis-Bacon protections is always a priority. As most of you know, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush took away critical wage protections from struggling Gulf state workers by using a presidential proclamation to suspend Davis-Bacon.

We fought back hard until they were restored.

Currently the Building Trades are working together in the Gulf states to develop a first ever work force development project.

To help address our industry's critical need for more skilled craft workers, we have partnered with the AFL-CIO Housing and Building Investment Trust, who have announced a $1 billion investment initiative to help rebuild the New Orleans area. Once again, Labor and the Building Trades are taking the lead for working people.