In Menendez, unions see a blue-collar guy

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1160888091237130.xml&coll=1

In Menendez, unions see a blue-collar guy
Sunday, October 15, 2006
BY DEBORAH HOWLETT
Star-Ledger Staff

At labor rallies, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez likes to offer this modest proposal: No member of Congress should get a pay raise, he says, until Congress increases the federal minimum wage.

It's a red-meat line for a blue-collar audience, and it never fails to stir the crowd.

But the line also illustrates the rapport Menendez, the son of a factory seamstress, has built with the working men and women whose unions are putting their money and numbers behind his campaign.

Most major labor unions in New Jersey have endorsed Menendez in the race for U.S. Senate against Republican state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. Last week came a string of public demonstrations of support: a rally in Atlantic City with the union representing 18,000 casino and hotel workers; a news conference in Trenton with four unions representing 25,000 nurses and home health care workers; a rally in Clifton where Menendez received the endorsement of the state's largest union local, representing 30,000 grocery store workers.

FULL story at link above.