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The Western Kentucky Worker | |
Official newsletter of the Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO
Prepared by Berry Craig, KEA-NEA and AFT Local 6038
Volume 5, Number 11, November, 2004
Union leaders see Dems rolling in Western Kentucky
Steve Earle thinks Sen. Jim Bunning was in political trouble before his bizarre behavior started grabbing headlines.
“He went negative too quickly,” said Earle, a United Mine Workers international representative. “I think Dr. Dan is within striking distance or you wouldn't be seeing those nasty ads Bunning is putting on TV.”
“Dr. Dan” is Democratic state Sen. Dan Mongiardo, a Hazard physician. The state AFL-CIO backs him.
Earle, from Madisonville , isn't the only Western Kentucky labor activist who likes Mongiardo's chances. “I think the voters will go for Mongiardo big-time down here, and if they do, he'll win big-time,” said Hardy Williams, Area Council recording secretary and a retired Machinist.
Just a few weeks ago, polls predicted Bunning would win again in a blowout. Now Bunning's big lead seems all but gone.
The senator's strange statements -- including a charge that Mongiardo campaign workers roughed up Bunning's wife at the Fancy Farm political picnic -- led the Louisville Courier-Journal , to publish an editorial asking, “Has Sen. Bunning drifted into territory that indicates a serious health concern?”
Another C-J editorial took Bunning to task for a TV commercial labeling Mongiardo a “Medicaid Millionaire.” The ad showed a fancy house and an expensive airplane purportedly belonging to the Democrat.
Mongiardo does not own the mansion or the plane, the C-J said. “Dr. Mongiardo has devoted his life to serving the poor in his native Eastern Kentucky , in part by volunteering at a free health clinic that he helped to open,” the C-J editorialized. The paper added that the commercial “claims...Dr. Mongiardo billed Medicaid for millions, but doesn't mention that this was for more than a decade's worth of work in a region overloaded with Medicaid patients.”
The editorial said Bunning, not Mongiardo, “has been at the public trough for decades and lives well, in a $289,000 Kentucky home and a $541,000 Virginia residence. Dr. Mongiardo lives on 10 slanted acres at Hazard, with a mortgage on his $300,000 house.”
If Mongiardo wins, the Democrats will be minus a member in the Republican-majority state senate. Earle thinks the Democrats may retake the upper house Nov. 2.
He believes the Democrats are surging statewide. “I've been in politics for 33 years, and I've never seen anything like it,” he said.
“I was at a Democratic rally in Muhlenberg County and saw people there I hadn't seen in 10 years. I'm also seeing the same thing in Hopkins County and Ohio County . I'm encouraged from what I'm hearing from across the state, too.” Bubba Dawes of Calvert City is as upbeat as Earle. “It's unreal,” said Dawes, an Area Council delegate, Machinists' union officer and chairman of the Marshall County Democratic Executive Committee.
“We've given out 500 Kerry-Edwards signs in Marshall County . I brought 250 more in…and we're almost out again. I feel like Kentucky might surprise some people.”
Jeff Wiggins, Area Council president, said only about half of the Republicans in his Reidland neighborhood have yard signs this fall. “Usually, they've got two.”
Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
Ink turns black in Labor Day Weekend program ledger
The Labor Day weekend program is in the black again.
“We cleared $4,135.88,” said Frances Willey, president of the Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee, the all-volunteer group that puts on the city's Labor Day festivities. “The last three years I worked on the committee, we were in the red.”
The 2004 Labor Day parade might have been the longest ever. Jeff Wiggins, Area Council president and Labor Day Committee vice president, praised Bubba Dawes for “an excellent job of lining up the parade. Everything went bam, bam, bam.”
Besides the parade on Broadway, the three-day Labor Day weekend program features food, entertainment, a flea market and political speaking at Carson Park . “I thank everyone for all of the help they have given,“ Willey said. “All of the bills are paid. We don't owe anything.“
She said the committee will start meeting after Jan. 1 to plan the 2005 Labor Day program. “But committee members need to start thinking now about what needs to be done and how we might improve the program,” she said.Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
CLEAR slates steward training class at Council Hall
A beginning union steward training class will be offered at the Area Council hall on Nov. 8 from 6 to 9 p.m.
The program is sponsored by the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Kentucky . “This class is ideal for any union who has a new steward who needs some training,” said Benny Adair, Council vice president.
More information about the class is available from Nancy Johnson, the CLEAR director. Her telephone number is 859-257-4811. Her email address is nbj@uky.eduReturn to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
George Wiggins boosts Coleman, Abraham and Hicks
Vote for Robert Coleman, Richard Abraham and Lewis Hicks, George Wiggins asks.
“The Council endorsed Robert Coleman, but we also need to get out and work hard for Richard Abraham, too,” said Wiggins, a retired union firefighter and council delegate. “They are our friends. They will help us any way they can.”
Coleman, a veteran trade unionist, is the longest-serving member of the Paducah city commission. Abraham, a former city commissioner, is running for mayor against Bill Paxton, the incumbent.
Wiggins also urged La Center residents to reelect Mayor Lewis Hicks. Hicks is a Council trustee and member of PACE Local 5-680.
Jeff Wiggins, Council president and George Wiggins' son, recalled Coleman's remarks at the dedication of the labor floodwall mural. “It was one of the most powerful union speeches I've ever heard,“ he said. “I am proud to call him my friend. We need more people like him on the city commission, and we need a mayor like him.”Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
‘If we don't energize our unions, it is our own fault'
By JEFF WIGGINS
Council President
I challenge each and every one of you to energize your local for this election. Go out and find young people and get them involved in this election.
We've been coming here year after year and we see the same old faces. We know what is at stake in this election. We've also got to educate our young people about what‘s at stake.
It's up to each of us. If we don't energize our unions, it is our own fault. Don't put the blame on anybody else but yourself.
Challenge five members of your union to get involved. Get each of them to challenge five more people.
I have members of my own union with signs for unendorsed candidates in their yards. All of us do.
We need to educate them about union-endorsed candidates and union positions on the issues. A young member of mine -- hired out of the military six months ago -- put a right-to-work pamphlet on the bulletin board in our plant. I had to take him aside and explain to him why right-to-work was wrong for unions.
We union leaders are not communicating with our members the way we should. That's a problem across the nation and across the state. We are missing the boat and we are killing ourselves.
We've got to get out there on the shop floor every day and talk to the members about what the union means and what the union does for them. A union leader is no better than any other member of a union. But we have knowledge and experience and we need to be sharing that with our members, especially our younger members.
We need to get them to see the whole picture, not just a single issue like guns or abortion. Maybe I sound like I'm preaching. But we need to do a little more preaching in our local unions.Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
If you like Fletcher, you'll love Rudy, Winters and Petty
By BERRY CRAIG
KEA-NEA/AFT LOCAL 6038
Is Gov. Ernie Fletcher arrogant or just politically-challenged?
Halfway through the $50,000-a-day special session of the General Assembly Fletcher called to help bail him out of the mess he made with state employees' health insurance, the governor went AWOL.
He traveled to Paducah and Mayfield to blast state Rep. Charles Geveden, D-Wickliffe, and raise money for two Republican candidates for the state legislature, Ken Winters of Murray and Buddy Petty of Mayfield.
Geveden is union-endorsed. So are Democrats Dennis Null, a Mayfield attorney running against Winters for the state senate seat being vacated by Bob Jackson, a Murray Democrat; and state Rep. Fred Nesler, D-Mayfield, Petty's opponent.
While Fletcher was doing his party's business, Geveden and Nesler were doing the people's business in Frankfort . I suspect the governor's political jaunt to our end of the state raised more than a few local eyebrows and hackles.
No doubt, Winters, Petty and Steven Rudy, Geveden's Republican opponent, want local voters to see them as "independent" folks who would "put the interests of their constituents ahead of party considerations.” Maybe when hogs fly and kids don't shoot hoops in Kentucky any more.
Anybody who knows politics knows that first-year legislators almost never stray from positions handed down from their leaders. Thus, freshmen Winters, Petty and Rudy would almost certainly toe the GOP line nearly every time.
Fletcher obviously believes he can count on the loyalty of Winters, Petty and Rudy. Otherwise, why would he have come calling on their behalf? The choice in state house and senate races Nov. 2 could hardy be more clear. If you like Ernie Fletcher, vote for Republicans. If you don't, vote for labor-endorsed Democrats. In our area, they are, besides Geveden, Null and Nesler, state Reps J.R. Gray of Benton, Bill Cherry of Princeton and Buddy Buckingham of Murray and state Sen. Joey Pendleton of Hopkinsville.