Legislatively, the Department has been very busy, and I want to mention two significant ongoing battles that impact the future of every Building Trades member.

Currently, we are working with senators and representatives and staff to produce a workable prescriptive plan to reform the rules governing our multi-employer pension plans.

It has been a long and contentious battle to make Congress do the right thing on this critical issue.

I just talked to Randy DeFrain this morning from the NCC&P, and it looks like we are going to come out of the House today with everything we needed. And it will be in the Senate next week, and hopefully we'll come to a conclusion.

Immigration is also an important issue, because whether it gets resolved in this Congress or the next, the outcome will impact the members of the construction trades unions for years to come.

There has been much media attention given to proposals to solve the illegal immigrant problem with thousands of miles of barbed wire fencing, of hundreds of thousands of National Guard troops guarding our boarders.

Reasonable people recognize that these costly solutions will not stop the flow of people looking for work and opportunity anymore than thousands of miles of dangerous ocean voyage stopped our own great grandparents decades ago.

Today's illegal immigrant problem cannot be solved until the root of the problem is addressed head on. If there were no job opportunities easily and illegally available for employers willing to expand their own profits by exploiting cheap illegal labor, the tide of persons willing to risk life and limb to get those jobs would end.

The immigration bill would be both meaningless and toothless, unless Congress finds of courage to address both sides of the problem — the exploited illegal workers and unscrupulous profiteers who employ them. That is why the trades have been working tirelessly to get a meaningful wage floor included in the Senate legislation that contains a guest worker provision.