1. Short title This Act may be cited as the The Peter J. McGuire Labor Day Landmark Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Peter J. McGuire joined the Cabinet Makers Union of New York in 1872 and, recognizing the need for one international union of wood workers, called for and led a convention of carpenters and joiners in Chicago in 1881 that formed the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners which became the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America in 1888. (2) The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners elected McGuire its first general secretary and retained him in that position for twenty years. (3) McGuire was a leader in convincing skeptical, locally minded union activists around the United States that a national labor federation was not only necessary, but also possible. (4) McGuire co-founded with Samuel Gompers the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions and, in 1886, reorganized it into the American Federation of Labor. (5) McGuire served variously as the American Federation of Labor secretary and vice president between 1886 and 1900. (6) McGuire successfully led the fight for the eight-hour day in 1890. (7) In 1882, McGuire proposed that one day in the year be designated as Labor Day , a proposal that was adopted first by a number of States and then as the first Monday in September by an Act of Congress in 1894. (8) Upon McGuire’s death in 1906, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners commissioned from M.C. Lyons and Sons, Camden, and had installed a massive granite multistage headstone on McGuire’s gravesite in the Arlington Cemetery at 1629 Cove Road, Pennsauken, New Jersey, inscribed with P.J. MCGUIRE, BORN JULY 6, 1852 DIED FEB. 18, 1906 and FOUNDER OF U.B. OF C. & J. OF A. . (9) Beginning in 1906, each year labor leaders, political leaders, families, and working people gather at McGuire’s gravesite on Labor Day to lay wreaths and deliver speeches in tribute to McGuire and his great work. (10) As the anniversary of McGuire’s centennial birthday approached,