Carteret, NJ – The Middlesex County AFL-CIO Council has announced that Mayor Daniel J. Reiman has been selected as the recipient of its 2008 Hubert H. Humphrey “Friend of Labor” Award. The award will be presented to Mayor Reiman at the Council’s 25th annual Awards and Scholarship Brunch, to be held at The Heldrich in New Brunswick, Sunday April 27, at 10:00 a.m..
Every year since 1983, the Middlesex County Central Labor Council recognizes prominent individuals who mirror the example set by Hubert H. Humphrey, who served as U.S. Vice President from 1965-1969 and was a staunch defender of human civil rights. Along with his efforts to end racial discrimination, Humphrey advanced national labor unions and interests. He is accredited for being predominantly responsible for the first federal labor laws, and furthering the rights of laborers across the nation.
On Sunday, Mayor Reiman will be honored for exemplifying the ideals and concerns of regional labor unions within Carteret’s economic development agenda. According to Middlesex County AFL-CIO President Joe Jennings;
“Like Hubert H. Humphrey,” Jennings stated, “Dan has demonstrated a balance between business and labor with the redevelopment that Carteret is acclaimed for. His door has always been open to labor, and his administration has been proactively forthright regarding our concerns.”
In his 2008 State of the Borough Address, Mayor Reiman illustrated that his staff and redevelopment professionals have been directed to include project labor agreements between the Borough of Carteret and development companies building in town;
“Project labor assures that skilled union craftsmen literally and figuratively construct the footings and foundations of our new neighborhoods and light industrial commercial areas,” Reiman stated.
The AFL-CIO will also recognize Mayor Reiman for hosting Carteret’s annual “Worker’s Memorial Day” observance, the next of which will be hosted on Monday, April 28th, at the Thomas J. Deverin Community Center (1:00 p.m., 100 Cooke Avenue). Each year Mayor Reiman joins with labor union representatives, as well as county and state dignitaries, for this ceremony which recognizes and honors laborers who have been injured or killed on the job.
“To a good extent,” Reiman announced, “this administration’s policies and approach to labor has been following on the ideals and family values I learned growing up in a working-class, middle income family – the typical family that makes up the vast majority of our community. Those represented through our regional labor unions serve as the foundation of progress for both the public and private sector. Here in Carteret, a good deal of our revitalization has been owed to the quality of work that has been provided, and to the values that they maintain.”
