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OPA News Release: [12/06/2005]
Contact Name: Bob Zachariasiewicz
Phone Number: (202) 693-4686
Release Number:
05-2263-NAT
Labor Department Inducts Labor Leader and Philanthropist
Into its Hall of Fame
Peter Brennan, Gen. Robert Wood Johnson Memorialized in Ceremony
WASHINGTON—U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao today hosted the 17th Labor Hall of Fame induction ceremony, honoring Peter Brennan, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Gen. Robert Wood Johnson, founder of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and son of a founder of Johnson & Johnson, the world's most comprehensive and broadly based health care products company.
“The Labor Hall of Fame memorializes those who have made significant contributions in making life better for American workers,” said Secretary Chao. “These leaders we honor today, Secretary Brennan and General Johnson, were leading advocates for workers and their public, private and non-profit sector achievements are making a difference for working Americans.”
The Labor Hall of Fame was founded in 1988 to honor posthumously those Americans whose distinctive contributions enhanced the quality of life for America's workers.
Peter Brennan was born in the Irish tenement neighborhood of New York City known as Hell's Kitchen. After high school he attended college part-time and worked as an apprentice painter. He joined Local 1456 of the Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America; eventually he rose to the position of president of the New York City Building and Construction Trades Council. Brennan served as Secretary of Labor under Presidents Nixon and Ford, from February 1973 to March 1975.
During Brennan's tenure as Secretary of Labor, new laws were adopted to protect the pensions of millions of workers, and the employment rights of people with disabilities were greatly expanded. He reactivated the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship and appointed the first African American to serve on the committee.
Robert Wood Johnson, commonly addressed as General for the rank he attained in World War II service, was an industrialist as well as an egalitarian. He advocated and paid a minimum wage that even the unions of his day considered more than fair. His interests in hospitals prompted him to join in the founding of one of the first schools of hospital administration. He was also a strong advocate of patients' needs and he promoted better education on patient care for both doctors and nurses.
Johnson's legacy includes his one-page management credo for his firm which specifies a company's first responsibility is to its customers, followed in order by its workers, community and stockholders. There is little doubt about his sense of social responsibility. He left almost his entire fortune to the foundation that bears his name. The foundation is based in Princeton, N.J., and focuses on improving health care for Americans. It is one of the world's largest private philanthropies.
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