Navy Pier has been a Chicago landmark since it opened in 1916, and over the past decades, thousands of skilled, unionized building and construction trades workers have helped build and refurbish this Chicago icon.

Originally called Municipal Pier, it was renamed Navy Pier in 1927 to honor those who served in the Navy during World War I. The pier was unique at the time—a working pier that served Great Lakes freighters and passenger ships but also was designed as a recreation site for Chicago’s citizens.

Passenger traffic declined and motor freight delivery to Lake Shore cities increased in the 1920s. Coupled with the Great Depression of the 1930s, all commercial shipping lines disappeared from the Navy Pier.

In August 1941, the U.S. Navy took over the pier and it became an important training facility throughout World War II. The pier housed classrooms for Navy aircraft mechanics and two aircraft carriers operated from the pier, with more than 15,000 Navy pilots training on the carriers.

After the war, the University of Illinois established a Navy Pier campus and thousands of returning veterans, taking advantage of GI Bill educations benefits, attended college on the pier.

The pier saw more commercial success in the 1950s during construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which opened a link from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

Because larger seagoing ships needed bigger and more modern pier facilities, a new deepwater port was developed in the early 1960s that took most commercial ships. In 1964, the University of Illinois closed its Navy Pier campus.

After it fell into disrepair for much of the 1970s and early 1980s, the city of Chicago established a $150 million redevelopment project and the pier was reborn in 1995 as year-around entertainment, shopping, dining and exhibition site.

The AFL-CIO is governed by a quadrennial Convention made up of elected delegates representing the 13 million members of AFL-CIO unions. Convention delegates set broad policies and goals for the union movement and elect the AFL-CIO officers—the president, secretary-treasurer, executive vice president and 51 vice presidents. This year the Convention will consider proposals to strengthen America’s union movement for the future by enabling more workers to join unions and providing workers a more powerful voice in public policy and politics.

The 2005 AFL-CIO Convention will be held July 25–28 at the Navy Pier in Chicago. Preceding the Convention, on July 23–24, will be the Building Power for Working Families pre-convention conference at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. The conference will cover diversity in the union movement, organizing, strengthening state and local union movements and bringing justice to the global economy.

In the past six months, the AFL-CIO has solicited and received an extensive array of proposals and comments about how to strengthen our union movement to improve the lives of working families—from unions, state labor federations, central labor councils, constituency groups, community partner organizations, academics and many thousands of union members. Read these proposals and comments—and submit your own.

As the AFL-CIO Convention approaches, this site will post proposed resolutions and additional coverage.