The Western Kentucky Worker

Official newsletter of the Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO

Prepared by Berry Craig, KEA-NEA and AFT- Kentucky

Volume 6, Number 11, December, 2005

Afghan raffle earns $318 toward council monument fund

Thanks to Mary Hicks, the council's monument fund drive won't start at zero.

“She raised $318 at the state [AFL-CIO] convention by selling chances on an Afghan she knitted,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “That's the first donation for the fund. Hopefully we'll have raised enough money to have the monument in place in time for our annual Workers' Memorial Day observance on April 28.”

Hicks is the wife of Lewis Hicks, a council trustee, COPE director, state AFL-CIO executive board member and mayor of La Center.

“ I had knee surgery, and I knitted the Afghan while I was recovering,” she said. “I sold chances for a dollar apiece or six for five dollars.”

Wiggins praised Mary and Lewis as “a true union family. Lewis was last year's W.C. Young Award recipient. Mary used her time and talent to help us erect a labor memorial.”

Wiggins said the monument would be similar to one the Tri-County Labor Council in Henderson is erecting. “They are planning to have their monument up for Workers' Memorial Day. We want ours to be in place, too.”

Wiggins is working with an Owensboro monument company. “They'll help us with the design,” he said. "The stone itself will come from the Rock of Ages Co. They're union."

The council approved the purchase of a large, rough-hewn stone for a workers' memorial a few years back. “We decided we'd rather have a more formal design in granite,” Wiggins said.

Wiggins isn't sure how much the granite monument will cost. “It depends on the design and size,” he said.

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Bring your candidate questions to the January meeting

Delegates will decide on the form of a candidate questionnaire at the January council meeting.

“There are some important elections coming up next year, and the candidate filing deadline is in late January,” Wiggins said. “We want to be ready with a questionnaire, so I asked delegates to start thinking up the questions we need to be asking these candidates.”

Delegates can vote to endorse local candidates. In state races, delegates recommend candidates for endorsement to the state AFL-CIO.

Wiggins said labor's top priority should be helping reelect State Rep. J.R. Gray, D-Benton. “The union movement has no better friend in Frankfort than J.R., and we all know that,” he said. “We have worked hard for him before. We need to work extra hard for him next year.”

Wiggins also said unions must “take back the Senate and make it labor friendly. We need to end the dictatorship of [Republican Majority Leader] David Williams."

State Sen. Bob Leeper of Paducah is seeking another term. So far, his opponents are Democrat Carroll Hubbard and Republican Jerry Shemwell, both of Paducah . Hubbard is a former congressman and state senator. Shemwell, an ex-Democrat, was on the McCracken County school board. Leeper was first elected as a Democrat. He switched to the Republicans but later declared himself an independent.

It isn't certain that Hubbard will have no opposition in the May Democratic primary. “We don't know if Carroll Hubbard will be the only Democratic candidate,” Wiggins said. “His overall labor voting record was 65 percent in all of the years he was in Congress.

“That's not all that great. But it's better than Leeper's. His voting record as a Democrat was 100 percent. It went to zero after he turned Republican.”

Wiggins said labor will have to stand united to help the Democrats reclaim the Senate and add to their majority in the House. “The Democratic House is all that's standing between us and a right to work law.”

Wiggins cited a comment he heard at the state AFL-CIO convention. “When we circle the wagons, we shoot each other. We've got to quit fighting among ourselves. “ We've got to unite as one. The labor movement isn't about egos and internationals. It is about the average person who goes out there and works every day.

"Unions built the middle class in this country, and it is up to unions to preserve it. If we go down, let's go down fighting.”

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Steele says call McConnell, Whitfield to support WHPP

Free mobile CT scans may stop at the PACE 5-550 union hall unless the Department of Energy provides additional funds to continue the screening. "We are urging everybody to call Sen. Mitch McConnell and Congressman Ed Whitfield to help us keep this lifesaving program going," said Donna Steele, council financial secretary-treasurer and member of PACE 5-550, which represents workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The CT scans will continue at least through January at the union hall. "But there are so many people who need to be screened, we've got to make sure we don't lose the CT scans," said Steele.

The program is called the Worker Health Protection Program. It is implemented by the PACE International Union and Queens College in New York City through funds provided by DOE. WHPP offers free medical screening to employees of DOE contractors.

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We won on election day, but beware the social issues

By BERRY CRAIG, AFT-Kentucky/KEA-NEA

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" is one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes.

It seems to fit the labor movement after Nov. 8. Just when the union-haters figured they had us down for the count, we got off the canvas and scored a knockout from New Jersey and Virginia to California .

Unions played a starring role in Democratic victories in gubernatorial races in the Garden State and in the Old Dominion. Organized labor helped terminate all four of The Terminator's ballot measures in the Golden State .

I don't blame the national AFL-CIO for doing a little bragging on its Internet website. "Working family voters elected two pro-worker governors, defeated anti-worker propositions in California and voted to create good jobs in Ohio ," the election story said.

The story quoted Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation. "Labor's voice was not silenced -- we spoke loud and clear," he said. "This victory was the result of a massive effort by all of California 's unions."

No group worked harder to beat Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature proposals than organized labor. At the same time, union votes helped make Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine governor of Virginia and Jon Corzine governor of New Jersey . The two races for governor and the California ballot proposals grabbed most headlines and the majority of TV news coverage. But the AFL-CIO website pointed out that on election day, too, Buckeye State voters endorsed a plan to create construction and high-tech jobs through a special $2 billion “Jobs for Ohio ” bond issue.

“These election results should put every elected official on notice: Working people are fed up with the anti-worker direction of our country and are ready to get involved to change it,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Though most things went our way Tuesday, it's a long way to election day 2006. “Like Charles Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Tuesday's election results are signs of what may be, not what will be,” a Louisville Courier-Journal editorial aptly observed. Labor must keep its power dry. Even so, Nov. 8 was a close encounter of the worst kind for the Republicans, who are up to their ears in hot water in Washington and Frankfort . President Bush is sinking in national polls. Bluegrass State opinion surveys show Gov. Fletcher is about as popular as a wet dog at a wedding.

About all the GOP has left are the social issues, notably God, guns and gays. They might not play in Berkley or Boston . But they are red meat in Red States like Kentucky .

Next year, Republican candidates again will stump from Paducah to Pikeville trying to hustle voters into believing that "GOP" still means "God's Own Party." They will pop "God Bless the USA " in the CD player. They will plight troths of everlasting love for guns. They will declare holy war against abortion and same sex marriage.

History suggests they will also sucker more than a few union-card carrying Kentuckians into voting the anti-union ticket. To paraphrase Twain's immortal Huck Finn, we've been here before.

"Why are 50 percent of blue-collar white males planning to vote for Bush in 2004, even when he is picking their pockets and stealing the futures of their children?” lamented Judy Calhoun, Oklahoma State UAW CAP council chairperson on the eve of last year's presidential election.

Similar discouraging words were heard from labor leaders in Kentucky , which is a lot like

Oklahoma , a once rock-ribbed Democratic state going Republican.

“ Oklahoma is a fine example of weird politics — a largely blue-collar state, heavily rural, nearly a quarter of the people poor, yet it is the blue-collar, rural and poor voters who are trending solidly toward the Republican Party,” Calhoun added.

That's ditto for Kentucky .

"Only in America would the people most hurt by Bush's policies be his strongest supporters,” Calhoun wrote. “There have been 2.7 million jobs lost during his presidency. The largest numbers of new jobs being created are extremely low paying.”

Amen.

“As one of the most heavily Religious Right states in the union, Oklahoma has more than 700,000 Southern Baptists in a state of only 3.4 million,” she added. “Add hundreds of thousands more who are fundamentalists of other or no denominations. Forty-nine percent of men and 38% of blue-collar women told a Roper poll they would vote for Bush in 2004.”

The numbers were probably about the same in Bible Belt Kentucky .

“ Oklahoma 's pompous Republican U.S. Senator, Jim Inhofe, always spouts 'God, guns and gays,'” Calhoun wrote.

Kentucky 's pompous Republican U.S. Senators, Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning, are masters at pandering to the Three Gs.

“Since the 1970s, right-wing Republicans have used ‘God, guns and gays' to win blue-collar votes,” Calhoun wrote. “They resorted to these ‘single issues' because they had trouble attracting blue-collar voters with a strictly pro-business program. There is no reason why the Democratic Party can't again include everybody who is concerned about the well-being of their families. Aren't jobs, health care and retirement security just as important to blue-collar voters who are religiously conservative, gun-owning and anti-abortion?”

Double amen.

“What the blue-collar male is not doing is examining Bush, the man at the top, who's rigging the whole economy in favor of Corporate America and the super rich,” Calhoun wrote. “Look at the Bush record, not his rhetoric: job loss, elimination of overtime pay, reduction in future Social Security, rising future Medicare costs, no long-term care, outsourcing of jobs and tax cuts for the super rich.”

Triple amen.

Getting more union members to heed the Judy Calhouns and start voting their head – and wallet – and not their gut is a mega challenge for union leaders, especially in Kentucky and other Red States . There is no challenge greater or more important to the future of our movement.

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Got news? Email it to Berry Craig at bcraig8960@charter.net or Jeff Wiggins at JLWiggins2@Juno.com.

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