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The Western Kentucky Worker |
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Silly Podunk Kentuckians who talk funny
By BERRY CRAIG
The snow-softened rubble of the Continental General Tire plant at Mayfield reminds me of a scene in "New in Town." We rented the movie from a video store the other night.
Lucy Hill, played by Renee Zellweger, is a high-powered corporate executive from sunny Miami. She's been sent in snowy wintertime to a small Minnesota community similar to Mayfield, my hometown, first to downsize, then close, a food processing plant which her company owns.
Plant secretary Blanche Gunderson, played by Siobhan Fallon, accidentally finds a list of workers Hill plans to lay off. She gently confronts Hill.
“…I made that a long time ago,” Hill protests. “I made that list before I even knew you.”
“It's okay to pull the rug out from under folks as long as it's nobody that you know?” Gunderson replies. “It's okay because we're just silly Podunk Minnesotans, right? We talk funny and we ice fish and we scrapbook. We drag Jesus into regular conversation. We're not cool like you, right? So we don't matter.”
German-owned Continental finished pulling the rug out from under Mayfield three years ago. Our economy hasn't recovered from the loss of the plant. It might not ever.
Opened by General Tire, an American company, in 1960, the plant made car and truck tires. Most of them went to auto plants in Detroit and other places to be put on new vehicles. At one time, the Mayfield factory provided jobs for about 2,200 union and 400 salaried employees.
In 1987, Continental bought General Tire, which ultimately became Continental Tire North America. In 2007, Continental shut the Mayfield factory after several months of drawing down production and laying off workers. A salvage firm bought the plant and is demolishing it for scrap.
I wonder if Continental figured Mayfield plant workers were “just silly Podunk” Kentuckians who talk funny? It doesn't get nearly cold enough to ice fish in the Bluegrass State . But scrapbooking and talking Jesus are common in these parts.
Continental claimed it had to close the Mayfield plant. The company said the factory was too old, too outmoded and had the highest production costs of any of its North American factories.
The plant union, United Steelworkers Local 665, tried to help Continental keep the plant going. The union "offered to extend our labor agreement and commit to workforce restructuring, if
the company would make an equal commitment to invest in the plant and this community," said Terry Beane. He was the last president of Local 665.
Beane and Wayne Chambers, the plant's last vice president, even met with Continental executives. “The Germans looked me in the eye,” Beane said. “They looked Wayne in the eye.
"They said they appreciated our comments on good old Mayfield. They also said, 'We are a global company, and we are going to build our tires wherever we want and as cheaply as we can.'”
"Wherever” meant low-wage countries overseas or non-union Continental facilities stateside, Chambers said.
Nothing else in "New in Town" reminded me of what happened to the Mayfield plant. In the movie, the workers end up buying their factory and running it themselves.
The Hill character goes with the workers. She'll be plant manager and apparently the new bride of Ted Mitchell, a union official and widower played by Harry Connick Jr. You get the idea that Lucy, Ted, Blanche and everybody else are going to live happily ever after.
I've never heard of a real corporate executive who had a conscience attack and sided with workers at a plant he or she was about to downsize or shut. I don't know of any members of Local 665 who have found better jobs than the ones they had at the factory.
Chambers, right , works part time for the Steelworkers helping former plant employees get their health benefits. Beane fills snack machines for a local vending company.
The tire factory, which won awards from car manufacturers for quality tires, is fast becoming heaps of crushed concrete and snapped off steel girders. It looks like images of bombed-out World War II buildings you see on the Military Channel on TV.
Every day, red and lime-green crawler cranes knock down more of the factory, which sprawled over several acres. The crane arms bob up and down like the bald heads of buzzards picking at road kill on busy, four-lane U.S. 45 North, which runs past the plant site.
"People worked at the plant from all over western Kentucky and even Tennessee,” Chambers said. “Now all those good jobs are gone. It's just like in the Depression."
Chambers knows Mayfield is not the only town that is minus a big plant. "All across the country, people are in the same bad shape," he said. "It's all because of corporate greed. These big companies just want to make all the money they can. They ship our jobs out of the country and don't care who gets hurt.”
What Continental did was legal, thanks to right-wing Republicans and to some “Blue Dog Democrats,” most of them from Southern right-to-work states. They're always glad to keep government and unions “off the back” of big business.
Big corporations and their friends in politics, the pulpit and the media call busting unions and shipping jobs and production abroad or to right-to-work states “free enterprise.” (The “free enterprisers” also blame “greedy unions” when they close unionized plants.)
When conservatives say “free enterprise,” they mean union free. They also mean free of meaningful government regulations that do things like safeguard the lives and limbs of workers on the job, protect consumers against dangerous products and shield the environment against pollution that can make us sick or even kill us.
Heaven help the republic, “free enterprisers” declare, if government does anything significant on behalf of “silly Podunk” workers against the greed of big corporations like Continental.
Go ahead and slam me as a “socialist.” But I'd like to see Congress slap a hefty tax on companies – foreign-owned or domestic – that move plants from the U.S. to low-wage countries. I'd like to see a law passed that would give workers a real say in how their companies operate, like workers have in Sweden, whose workforce is almost 70 percent unionized. (Count me in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, too.)
Anyway, a more accurate name for “free enterprise” is “social responsibility free enterprise.” Continental didn't feel any responsibility toward its employees or to our town, indeed to our region. Profit, not people or the communities where they live, mattered most with the company. Of course, there are dozens of other corporations like Continental, which closed another unionized ex-General Tire plant in Charlotte , N.C.
Chambers and Beane won't have Continental tires on their vehicles. Nor will I and many others in and around Mayfield.
"The tires [Continental is]...shipping to this country aren't any cheaper to the consumer,” Chambers said. “Sometimes, they cost even more."
He cited a newspaper advertisement for a tire store in Paducah , near Mayfield. "It was in the Paducah paper. There were five different brands in the ad. Size for size, Continentals were the most expensive."
Scorn me as “naïve,” or a “bleeding heart,” too. But I don't see how downsizers and plant closers can live with themselves. I guess that makes me “just another Podunk” working stiff unwise in the ways of "free enterprise."
Admittedly, I don't “drag Jesus into everyday conversation” very often. But I thank the Good Lord that the basics of my Presbyterian upbringing have stuck with me to age 60. I try hard to live by what Christians call the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” (The same principle is also found in other faiths.)
Five days a week, I drive one or the other of my American-made cars past the tire plant going to and from the community college in Paducah where I teach history. It saddens me to see less and less of the plant standing each time I go by.
I know the Good Book says we're supposed to love people who harm us. But I also get angry when I see Continental's handiwork.
The Continental bosses, who make big money, live in big houses and drive big cars, probably don't give Mayfield a thought. But they ought to visit our town, drive out 45 and watch the rubble rise. They also could tool around town and see the empty store buildings and the open spaces on our court square where other stores have been torn down.
The "Conti" brass could bring publicists from the PR division of Continental Tire North America, which is headquartered, not coincidentally, in South Carolina , a right-to-work state.
The flaks could take pictures of the ruins of the Mayfield plant for one of their glossy-paged annual reports for stockholders. After all, what happened where I live was good old American “free enterprise.”
Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
| Young Award nominations will be sought at the February meeting |
Nominations for the W.C. Young Award will top the agenda at the February council meeting. “Normally, we start the nominating process in January,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “But we had to cancel the meeting because of bad weather.” The award, named for the late W.C. Young, a national labor and civil rights leader form Paducah, is the highest honor the council bestows. Young won the first award. Frances Willey was last year's recipient. “Delegates make the nominations and the executive board names the winner,” Wiggins said. “We'll also be accepting nominations in March.” Wiggins also urged trustees to be at the February meeting to conduct a required audit of the council's financial records. |
Senate passes bill to lift state ban on building nuclear plants
By BRUCE SCHREINER
Associated Press Writer
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Legislative Committee of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO endorsed lifting the moratorium. “Ending the moratorium would mean many new jobs for western Kentucky ,” said Jeff Wiggins, left, council president and member of the legislative committee. “It would mean jobs for the building trades and plant jobs.”
FRANKFORT , Ky. (AP) - Legislation to lift Kentucky 's ban on the construction of nuclear power plants steamed through the Senate on Wednesday but could get unplugged in the House.
The bill, which cleared the Senate on a 27-10 vote, is backed by Gov. Steve Beshear but House Speaker Greg Stumbo said he doesn't think the measure will pass the House.
State law currently prohibits a nuclear power plant from being built in Kentucky until there is a permanent storage facility to contain the nuclear waste. A proposed high-level radioactive waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been discussed for years.
Independent Sen. Bob Leeper of Paducah said Wednesday his bill would put Kentucky on "equal footing" with other states if the federal government ever approves new nuclear plants.
"We must recognize the value of nuclear power and the importance of allowing nuclear power to be a part of the energy mix in our state," Leeper said.
Leeper's district in western Kentucky is home to a uranium enrichment plant [where hourly employees belong to Steelworkers Union Local 5-550].
Democratic Sen. Ray Jones of Pikeville, who opposed the bill, called it "ill timed" and said it "turns a blind eye to the reality" that Kentucky relies heavily on coal for its electricity. Kentucky is among the nation's top coal producers, and Jones represents a coal-producing region in eastern Kentucky .
Jones said the measure "will basically do nothing to change the direction of Kentucky 's energy policy" because the federal government hasn't approved any new nuclear plants. Jones also raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power.
Leeper countered that he has been an ally of coal as a legislator, and said that nuclear reactors currently operating in the U.S. are doing so safely.
"It has a very, very admirable record in the United States ," he said.
Leeper also said his constituents recognize the many regulatory hurdles that would have to be cleared before any nuclear plants could be built in Kentucky .
Kentucky has not allowed nuclear power plants since 1984, after the General Assembly passed a law barring their construction until a permanent waste storage facility was in place.
Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said the bill reflects "a broader vision" for the country's energy needs. He said the measure would make Kentucky "well situated to continue to be an energy-producing giant."
Kentucky has its own history with nuclear waste.
An ill-fated nuclear dump site in Fleming County that opened in the 1960s, Maxey Flats, stored low-level radioactive waste when it was operational. The facility was an attempt to attract the nuclear industry to Kentucky , but it closed in the 1970s because water contaminated by radiation was found migrating beyond the site's borders.
Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, cited Maxey Flats in voting against the bill. She said workers there were unknowingly exposed "to things ... that they should not have been exposed to."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jimmy Hyde of the AFL-CIO's Southern Region sent Council President Jeff Wiggins the analysis of a survey taken after the Jan. 19 special election in Massachusetts to fill out the unexpired term of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Republican Scott Brown defeated labor-endorsed Democrat Martha Coakley.
- This was a working class revolt and reveals the danger to Democrats of not successfully addressing workers' economic concerns.
Coakley won among college graduates by 5 points, but lost the non-college vote by 20 points. This is a huge swing among non-college voters since 2008 when Obama won by 21 points (net swing of 41 points).
Non-college men voted for Brown by a 27-point margin (59-32), and working class women voted for Brown by +13 (college women went for Coakley by 13).
This was not a “white guy” election in general: small gender gap (men –13, women +2), smaller than the 24-point gap of 2008.
- Voters still have the same goals they had in November 2008: fix the economy and provide affordable healthcare. But they don't see the job being done. This is NOT a message to Obama and Congress about the size of government
Seventy-nine percent said electing a candidate who will strengthen the economy and create more good jobs is the single most important factor in how they vote.
Government hasn't done enough to help average people, but is seen as helping Wall Street. Sixty-one percent say government efforts on recession have helped large banks and Wall Street a great deal. Only 18 percent say government efforts have helped average working people and only 15 percent say those efforts have helped them and their families.
Voters who said the Massachusetts economy is at least "fair" supported Coakley by 52/43. A majority of voters who say the Massachusetts economy is not so good or poor voted Brown by 56/39.
Brown won voters in households where someone has lost a job in past year (50% to 45%)
- If anything, Democrats have underreached, not overreached
Voters were NOT saying Democrats overreached -- 47% say their bigger concern about Democrats is that they haven't succeeded in making needed change rather than they tried to make too many changes to quickly (32%). Even Brown voters are more concerned about lack of changes (50%) than too many changes (43%).
Massachusetts voters are significantly more concerned about doing too much to help banks and Wall Street (54 percent) versus over-regulating business (22 percent). Even Brown voters are more concerned about helping banks (55 percent) over government regulations (36 percent.)
- This was NOT a call to abandon health insurance reform BUT it was a repudiation of the excise tax.
Those who knew of Brown's opposition were as likely to say it made them less likely (39 percent) to support him as to say it make them more likely to support him (41percent)
Voters who thought their health benefits would be taxed under the Obama/Democratic plan voted for Brown (64/32). Voters who think the plan would NOT tax their benefits voted Coakley (54/40).
- New potential warning signs
Not only did young people drop from 17 percent of the electorate in 2008 to 10 percent on Jan. 19, they voted for Brown after giving Obama a 58 point margin in 2008
Other elements of the Democratic base turned out in lower proportions and gave Coakley much smaller margins than they gave Obama. (Nonetheless, the impact of this demoralization and defection on the outcome was much smaller than the impact of the working class defection in point 1, above.)
Conclusion: Unless Democrats demonstrate that fixing the economy is their overriding priority, and begin to create more jobs for working class Americans, the results of Jan. 19 (and in November 2009 in New Jersey and Virginia) demonstrate beyond doubt that far greater losses can be expected across the board in November, 2010.
Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
A little perspective, yes?
By DICK PRICE
Editor, LA Progressive
My, how the pendulum has swung.
A year ago, people of our political persuasion were falling all over themselves in joyous disbelief—here and around the world—that Barack Obama was about to be our president. Yes, by god, Our President!
A dark night in America 's checkered history was about to end. People who couldn't afford it, didn't have the time to spare, and usually wouldn't be bothered were trying to finagle Inaugural Day invitations and figure out which long-lost relative's couch might be available.
Cripes, my wife, Sharon—who can't stand being jostled coming out of a movie theatre—gave the idea a long thought.
Now, just a year later? You'd think Obama has peeled off his disguise to reveal that he's what? Dick Cheney? Rush Limbaugh's younger brother? Satan Incarnate?
But he's not, and here's one vote for all of us taking one of my daughter's chill pills.
How Could It Have Been Worse?
Far from ending America 's military adventuring in the Middle East, the Obama Administration has ordered more troops into Afghanistan and seems fully onboard the Neocon fantasy of a long-term American presence there.
Far from advancing a thoroughgoing healthcare reform that would cover all our citizens—just like they do in every other developed nation you can name—the Obama Administration and its friends in Congress spent 2009 kissing every last Centrist ass it could find to bring forward a pathetic thousand-page mishmash that will require certain classes of Americans to buy insurance they can't afford, while protecting the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry's obscene profits every way from Sunday.
Far from putting America back to work so the country could pull out of the history-making economic crisis George Bush and his cronies created, Obama's advisors created programs that have kept unemployment at 10 percent—and double that or more among Black men—while Wall Street brokers award themselves million-dollar bonuses.
Far from…Change We Can Believe In, indeed.
But you want worse?
Imagine President John McCain's plan to further deregulate the banking industry so those trickle-down profits Ronald Reagan promised would finally get to us.
Imagine Vice President Sarah Palin's nationwide speaking tour to advance her “Just Cross Your Legs” Family Planning Initiative.
Imagine grey eminences Karl Rove and Dick Cheney arriving with great pomp for their weekly White House strategy sessions.
Imagine George W. Bush as America 's Ambassador at Large to the world's troubled spots far and wide.
Sharon and I sit in on Mario Solis-Marich's KTLK AM1150 progressive talk radio show most Sunday afternoons. Probably more times than the listeners care to recall I have said that if John McCain were president today, we would be discussing troop levels in Tajikistan .
More than that, we would be moving even more steadily toward the warped Neoconservative vision for America—an America with a preeminent military-industrial complex supporting virtually perpetual war-making; an America sharply canted to protect and foster wealthy investor classes at the expense of everyday working folk; an America where racial and regional differences are exacerbated to create political gain…
Okay, right, that is America as it comes into this new millennium. But with a McCain- Palin Administration, the sea change that began with Ronald Reagan and washed through both Bush presidencies, pausing but not reversing itself during Clinton's eight years, would be gaining even more momentum, moving us inexorably toward an even uglier future.
With Barack Obama in the White House, and Joe Biden at his side, we at least have a chance to move in a better direction.
How Do We Move Forward?
First, let's all take that chill pill. We backed Obama's candidacy for a reason, and it wasn't because we mistook him for Dennis Kucinich.
So what was it?
Most of us understood Obama wasn't advocating the sudden end to our Middle East adventuring that we liberals want, or a single-payer healthcare system we think would benefit the country immensely, or revolutionary economic programs that create an equitable society for our children.
To get elected, we understood that he had to take a pragmatic approach. But underneath the pragmatism, we were attracted to the compassionate world view, the deep ability to grasp complex issues, and the soaring eloquence to voice our best hopes and dreams for the future that we saw, and see, in the man—traits that had been so woefully absent in George W. Bush's fear-mongering, hate-mongering, war-mongering reign.
And even if only a part of our rose-colored views were correct, we have to believe Obama has the makings of a great leader who can recognize when plans have gone off track and has the courage to chart a new course. That combination of confidence, humility, and courage is why we worked so hard to elect him.
After all, if being president was easy, with everything just falling in place after Inauguration Day, we could switch to an American Idol election approach and let Kellie Pickler have a crack at the job. It would be more fun than phone-banking, tabling, and precinct walking.
So Where to Begin?
First, Obama and his advisors need to understand that they've gotten into their current pickle because of things they have done. Sure, the well-funded opposition in Congress has proven exceptionally clever—it helps not to be burdened with a conscience—even with so few seats. And, yes, the George Bush debacle put the country in a deep, deep hole on virtually every front. But it was Obama administration mistakes that have eroded support within its own base so dramatically.
Second, Obama needs to recognize that his reach-across-the-aisle, can't-we-all-just-love-each-other, bipartisan approach is an abject failure, if for no other reason than that the people he's reaching out to want nothing better than for his presidency to fail. Obama and his people need to recognize that it was impassioned liberals that fueled his candidacy, not some-of-this, some-of-that middle-of-the-roaders—and certainly not Republicans in disguise like Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus.
Third, Obama needs to score a meaningful, progressive victory, such as putting America back to work. If you can't get Corporate America to stop shipping well-paid jobs off to India and the Philippines , then create government-run jobs program like Franklin Roosevelt's Works Projects Administration (WPA). Seriously, America 's roads, rails, parks, airports, and public buildings are in disrepair. Create programs that put people to work fixing them. It's often said that the best social program is a job, but the way you create more teabaggers bringing side arms to rallies is to keep them worried about how they're going to feed their families.
Once you've rallied your natural supporters again, reach out to the working classes that most need the social programs liberal Democrats espouse, then you can revisit our woeful healthcare system, our endless wars, and our disreputable approach to immigration. Get everyday Americans back to work with good-paying jobs so they can feed their families, educate their kids, and buy their own health insurance, you'll have them for generations.
Will that be easy? Of course not. But if President Obama marshals his troops to fight for fundamental, meaningful progressive changes, the people who worked so hard to elect him and who celebrated so joyously at his election will line up beside him and fight every bit as hard as he does.
And if he doesn't? Well, then we can talk about Plan B.
Dick Price, Editor, LA Progressive (You may view the latest post at http://www.laprogressive.com/election-reform-campaigns/perspective/).
Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
‘We have met the enemy and he is us'
By BERRY CRAIG
Eighty-two percent of them said they want a public option as part of the Democrats' health care reform.
Yet they just helped elect a guy who opposes the public option and the Democrats' health care reform.
They're Obama voters who cast ballots for Massachusetts 's new Republican senator, Scott Brown. He promised to be “the 41st vote” against what the GOP slams as “Obamacare.”
The 82 percent number is from a Research 2000 survey taken right after the polls closed in the special election to fill the unexpired term of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He championed health care reform, including a robust public option.
The poll was conducted for three liberal groups who favor a public option – the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn.org.
Progressive Change says the poll number means “even Scott Brown voters want the public option, want Democrats to be bolder.” Thus, the Democrats should get busy and pass health care reform with the public option, Progressive Change says.
The poll number hit me differently. It reminded me anew of Pogo's immortal words: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
I'm a union-card carrying Hubert Humphrey Democrat. I support a public option. But you can bet your snow boots if I were a Bay State voter, I'd have trudged through a blizzard to cast my ballot for Martha Coakley, Brown's Democratic opponent.
Don't get me wrong. The House and Senate Democratic health care plans don't go far enough for me either. But I don't see the wisdom of showing my displeasure with the president I voted for (and plan to vote for again in 2012) by helping elect a Republican who says he and the Democrats have gone too far on health care.
I suppose the pro-public option Obama voters who backed Brown figured they were casting a “protest vote.” I read where one woman said she was a “Brown Democrat.”
Motives for voting don't matter when ballots are tallied. “Protest votes” count the same as the votes of true believers.
Other Obama voters helped sink Coakley by not voting. Both she and Brown said turnout would be the key in the election.
The Democrats hold a big-time voter registration edge over the Republicans in Blue State Massachusetts , though most voters are signed up as independents. Brown's only chance was to turn out the GOP base and pick off a big chunk of independents – most of whom vote Democratic — and Democrats who feel disaffected for one reason or another.
A lot of Obama voters evidently did stay at home. The Research 2000 folks also polled some of them. Eighty-six percent said they favor the public option. I guess like the “Brown Democrats,” the no-shows wanted to “send a message.” No doubt Brown is thankful for their service to him, too.
I don't know if Sen. Brown or his campaign staffers are planning to pass out Most Valuable Player awards. But if they are, I'd like to nominate the Obama voters who “want a public option, want the Democrats to be bolder” but who didn't vote or voted for a candidate who is anti-public option and is the new hero at Fox News.
AFL-CIO president
What happened [on Jan. 19]…in Massachusetts was a wake-up call to all of us.
It was a working class revolt—a signal that in this economic crisis, the American people demand jobs, health care and an economy that works for them now—not political business as usual.
It was a loud and clear message that our elected leaders—and our labor movement—must do more for working people, do it fast and do it smarter.
An AFL-CIO poll [see article by Bruce Schreiner above] taken [on election night]…shows without doubt:
Voters are fed up that elected leaders have done too little to help working families.
They said Democrats have NOT overreached on jobs, the economy and health care—they have underreached.
Voters have seen too much help for Wall Street and not nearly enough help for Main Street .
Unless Democrats demonstrate that fixing the economy is their overriding priority, and begin to create more jobs for working Americans NOW, we're going to see more results this November like the Massachusetts election.
For the union movement and activists, the message was also clear: It's not time to leave it to any political party to take care of us once we put them in office. It's time to organize and mobilize as never before to make every elected or aspiring leader PROVE he or she will create the jobs we need in an economy we need with the health care we need.
I am not discouraged by Tuesday's election results. Actually, I'm energized and I want you to be, too. Working America is demanding major change NOW—not timid, go-slow, partial solutions.
I know we are the people who can mobilize a massive army to force elected leaders to deliver.
Let's do it—starting NOW.
P.S. I'm sending this same message in a YouTube video. Please take a look < http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/L7XWUyn1kQLE/> and share it with others.
President, United Steelworkers of America
From The Huffington Post
Bill Clinton saw it clearly when he was running for President against Bush I. It became his mantra: "It's the economy, stupid."
Clinton wanted to reform health insurance too. But he understood that during a recession, the first priority is jobs.
Politicians and commentators continue to blather obtusely about the meaning of Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley's loss to a Republican in a heavily Democratic state. Like Coakley and her advisors, they've failed to see the obvious, failed to learn from Clinton 's victory:
It's the economy, stupid.
Poll results show that Massachusetts voters punished Coakley - and Democrats -- for neglecting the issue most vital to them: jobs. If politicians had studied earlier polls or attempted to actually get in touch with mainstream, Main Street Americans, or just listened to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's Jan. 11 address at the Washington Press Club, they'd have known to focus on jobs. The message of Massachusetts should be clear: If Democrats want to save their own jobs in the mid-term elections this fall, they must create jobs now.
A poll taken as far back as the first week in December exposed voters' anger over the economy. The bipartisan Battleground Poll showed this: A huge majority of those surveyed ranked improving the economy and jobs as the most important tasks for Congress. It was 40 percent, compared to healthcare reform, at just 15 percent.
Here's what pollster Celinda Lake said about the results:
"The number one thing Democrats have to do is prove they really have a jobs program and an economic program that is going to sell on Main Street ."
That was a month before the Massachusetts vote. In the meantime, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced unemployment numbers for December - and they were worse in 43 states than they had been in November. Joblessness in Michigan , a high population heartland state, was the highest in the country at 14.6 percent. Only the rates in two other states, Rhode Island - 12.9 percent -- and South Carolina -- 12.6 percent, beat that in one of the dozen largest economies in the world - California . There it was 12.4, significantly higher than the U.S. average of 10 percent.
People are hurting. Pay attention, politicians. Pay attention.
They didn't. In the Massachusetts race, they were talking about terrorism and baseball.
In a Research 2000 poll done for MoveOn.org, 95 percent of Massachusetts residents surveyed ranked the economy as either important or very important to their candidate choice. Research 2000 questioned 1,000 registered voters - half of whom voted for Republican Scott Brown and half of whom did not vote at all.
Among those who voted for Obama in 2008 but Brown in 2010, 51 percent said they believed Democratic policies helped Wall Street more than Main Street .
It's the economy, stupid. The Main Street economy.
Similarly, in a Hart Research Associates poll conducted on election night in Massachusetts , 79 percent of voters said electing a candidate who would strengthen the economy and create more good jobs was the single most important factor in their decision. The most crucial quality for a candidate, they said: Someone who would fix the economy.
The Bush II Great Recession is more than two years old now. Workers are frightened and angry. They see bailouts for Wall Street, big bonuses for bankers and unemployment continuing to rise.
They will vent their frustration on politicians. Massachusetts showed it. Trumka warned about it earlier this month in his talk at the Press Club:
"At this moment, the voices of America's working women and men must be heard in Washington - not the voices of bankers and speculators for whom it always seems to be the best of times, but the voices of those for whom the New Year brings pink slips and givebacks, hollowed-out health care, foreclosures and pension freezes - the roll call of an economy that long ago stopped working for most of us."
He went on: "Working people want an American economy that works for them - that creates good jobs, where wealth is fairly shared. . ."
He recommended immediate implementation of the AFL-CIO's five-point jobs creation program - a plan that would produce 4 million jobs and includes dramatically increasing federal infrastructure and green jobs investments and direct lending of the refunded bank bailout money to small and medium sized businesses that can't get credit because of the financial Bill Clinton saw it clearly when he was running for President against Bush I. It became his mantra: "It's the economy, stupid."
Clinton wanted to reform health insurance too. But he understood that during a recession, the first priority is jobs.
Politicians and commentators continue to blather obtusely about the meaning of Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley's loss to a Republican in a heavily Democratic state. Like Coakley and her advisors, they've failed to see the obvious, failed to learn from Clinton 's victory:
It's the economy, stupid.
Poll results show that Massachusetts voters punished Coakley - and Democrats -- for neglecting the issue most vital to them: jobs. If politicians had studied earlier polls or attempted to actually get in touch with mainstream, Main Street Americans, or just listened to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's Jan. 11 address at the Washington Press Club, they'd have known to focus on jobs. The message of Massachusetts should be clear: If Democrats want to save their own jobs in the mid-term elections this fall, they must create jobs now.
A poll taken as far back as the first week in December exposed voters' anger over the economy. The bipartisan Battleground Poll showed this: A huge majority of those surveyed ranked improving the economy and jobs as the most important tasks for Congress. It was 40 percent, compared to healthcare reform, at just 15 percent.
Here's what pollster Celinda Lake said about the results: "The number one thing Democrats have to do is prove they really have a jobs program and an economic program that is going to sell on Main Street ."
That was a month before the Massachusetts vote. In the meantime, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced unemployment numbers for December - and they were worse in 43 states than they had been in November. Joblessness in Michigan , a high population heartland state, was the highest in the country at 14.6 percent. Only the rates in two other states, Rhode Island - 12.9 percent -- and South Carolina -- 12.6 percent, beat that in one of the dozen largest economies in the world - California . There it was 12.4, significantly higher than the U.S. average of 10 percent.
People are hurting. Pay attention, politicians. Pay attention.
They didn't. In the Massachusetts race, they were talking about terrorism and baseball.
In a Research 2000 poll done for MoveOn.org, 95 percent of Massachusetts residents surveyed ranked the economy as either important or very important to their candidate choice. Research 2000 questioned 1,000 registered voters - half of whom voted for Republican Scott Brown and half of whom did not vote at all.
Among those who voted for Obama in 2008 but Brown in 2010, 51 percent said they believed Democratic policies helped Wall Street more than Main Street .
It's the economy, stupid. The Main Street economy.
Similarly, in a Hart Research Associates poll conducted on election night in Massachusetts, 79 percent of voters said electing a candidate who would strengthen the economy and create more good jobs was the single most important factor in their decision. The most crucial quality for a candidate, they said: Someone who would fix the economy.
The Bush II Great Recession is more than two years old now. Workers are frightened and angry. They see bailouts for Wall Street, big bonuses for bankers and unemployment continuing to rise.
They will vent their frustration on politicians. Massachusetts showed it. Trumka warned about it earlier this month in his talk at the Press Club:
"At this moment, the voices of America's working women and men must be heard in Washington - not the voices of bankers and speculators for whom it always seems to be the best of times, but the voices of those for whom the New Year brings pink slips and givebacks, hollowed-out health care, foreclosures and pension freezes - the roll call of an economy that long ago stopped working for most of us."
He went on: "Working people want an American economy that works for them - that creates good jobs, where wealth is fairly shared. . ."
He recommended immediate implementation of the AFL-CIO's five-point jobs creation program - a plan that would produce 4 million jobs and includes dramatically increasing federal infrastructure and green jobs investments and direct lending of the refunded bank bailout money to small and medium sized businesses that can't get credit because of the financial crisis.
Just as important is implementation of the recommendations in the Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing report issued by the White House manufacturing task force in December. That report contains concrete measures to revive manufacturing in the U.S. to generate real wealth, not the illusory paper assets counterfeited on Wall Street.
Trumka called for immediate action, not going slow, not taking half steps. Those who seek delay are "harming millions of unemployed Americans and their families," he said, and jeopardizing economic recovery.
He ended with this warning:
"the reality is that when unemployment is 10 percent and rising, working people will not stand for tokenism. We will not vote for politicians who think they can push a few crumbs our way and then continue the failed economic policies of the last 30 years."
Workers executed that warning in Massachusetts . What Americans want are jobs.
What Americans want are jobs.
CANDIDATE FILINGS FOR THE MAY 18 PRIMARY
Kentucky Senate
Second District
Rex Smith, D-Paducah
William Michael East, R-Kevil
(Incumbent is Bob Leeper, I, Paducah , (who has until August to file)
Fourth District
J. Dorsey Ridley, D-Henderson (Incumbent)
Sixth District
Jerry Rhodes, D-Madisonville (Incumbent)
Jack W. Whitfield Jr., R-Madisonville
Kentucky House of Representatives
First District
Stephen J, Rudy, R-West Paducah (Incumbent)
Mike Lawrence, D-Paducah
Second District
Fred Nesler, D-Mayfield (Incumbent)
Third District
David Brent Housman, R-Paducah (Incumbent)
Fourth District
Mike Cherry, D-Princeton (Incumbent)
C. Lynn Belcher, R-Dycusburg
Fifth District
Melvin B. Hendley, D-Murray (Incumbent)
Corey L. McBee, R-Murray
Sixth District
Will J. Coursey, D-Symsonia (Incumbent)
Monti R. Collins, R-Benton
FIRST DISTRICT CONGRESS
Edward L. Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville (Incumbent)
Charles Kendall Hatchett, D-Benton
PADUCAH CITY COMMISSION
Richard Abraham, Carol Gault, Gayle Kaler, Shelley Keeling, Shirley Trail-Lanier, Gerald Watkins and Eric C. Youngblood (Because there are fewer than eight candidates, Abraham, Gault, Kaler, Keeling, Trail-Lanier, Watkins and Youngblood will advance to the November general election.
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From the national AFL-CIO
Haitian Disaster: How You Can Help
Here's How You Can Assist Haitians
The AFL-CIO is calling for the United States and the entire international community, including the global union movement, to “do our utmost to aid our Haitian sisters and brothers in their moment of extraordinary need.” Unions are mobilizing their members to provide aid in Haiti and through donations.
Here's how you can assist Haitians. We recommend the following organizations for donating to Haiti .
The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center's Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers' Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers. You can also send a check to: Solidarity Center Education Fund, 888 16th Street, N.W., Suite 400 , Washington , DC 20006
The Transport Workers Union has formed a disaster relief task force to enable the union to act immediately to help Haiti and stay for the ling run. You can send donations to: TWU of America, 5705 NW 38 St., Miami Springs , FL 33166 .
The Air Traffic Controllers ( NACTA) is working with the Dominican Air Traffic Controllers Association (ADCA) to get supplies to Haitian controllers and their families. Members can send donations to the NACTA relief fund via Pay Pal, https://www.paypal.com and include this e-mail address when making your donation: natcarelief@nactadc.org. Or you can send a check payable to "NACTA relief" to: NACTA Relief, 1325 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. , Washington , DC 20005 .
Partners in Health: or send your contribution to Partners In Health, P.O. Box 845578 , Boston , MA 02284 -5578. Partners in Health, which had staff on the ground in Haiti before the earthquake, provides daily updates on its assistance efforts.
Doctors Without Borders: or call toll free at 1-888-392-0392. USA Headquarters 333 7th Ave. , 2nd Floor, New York , NY 10001-5004 . Doctors Without Borders is a well-respected and highly effective humanitarian organization working in more than 60 countries to assist people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe.
American Red Cross International Response Fund: or call toll free at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions also can be mailed to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013 or to your local American Red Cross chapter (specify if you want to make sure your donation will benefit Haiti).
United Way Worldwide Disaster Fund: or mail checks with the fund reference to United Way Worldwide, P.O. Box 630568, Baltimore , MD 2123-0568.
Volunteer
If you or someone you know is a registered nurse, the National Nurses Union is coordinating volunteers to go to Haiti . Contact the RN Response Network: www.NationalNursesUnited.org.
Those interested in providing volunteer assistance should contact the Center for International Disaster Information, at http://www.cidi.org.
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Want to talk union on TV? Berry Craig is looking for guests for “The Union Label” his talk show on Cable Channel 2. He can be reached by phone at 543-3270 or by email at bcraig8960@newwavecomm.net |
Massachusetts disaster spells trouble for EFCA
By Steve Early
Scott Brown's January 19 defeat of Martha Coakley in the race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has been widely hailed in the mainstream media as a “game changer” for Barack Obama and his political backers.
This GOP victory has deprived Democrats of their “filibuster-proof” super-majority in the Senate, making Obama's health care plan—at least, in its current form—the most high-profile casualty of Coakley's loss.
But, for trade unionists already frustrated and disappointed with Obama, the collateral damage is far worse. Now, the White House staffers and Congressional leaders who've been re-assuring them that labor law reform was next on Obama's agenda don't even have 60 votes to prevent Republican filibustering of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)—in any form.
EFCA is, of course, a long-overdue set of amendments to the National Labor Relations Act that would help boost organizing and bargaining in the private sector. The latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor show why EFCA is necessary, if not entirely sufficient, for a union revival. Organized labor in private industry lost 10 percent of its membership in 2009, mainly in manufacturing and construction—the worst annual decline in the last quarter century.
Even before President Obama promised to sign EFCA—when and if it reached his desk—the bill aroused strong business opposition. During the horse-trading over health care “reform,” some industry groups ended up allying themselves with the administration, in return for a piece of the action—in the form of taxpayer-subsidized customers for doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and private insurers.
But no one in Corporate America wants to risk heavier civil penalties for committing unfair labor practices, so there was never any basis for similar “bi-partisan” deal-making over workers' rights.
Management has been particularly relentless in its attacks on EFCA's card check provision. In response to business lobbying—and with behind-the-scenes labor consent—an informal Capitol Hill committee began shopping around an "EFCA-lite” last fall to mollify centrist Democrats, whose support was already wilting even before Scott Brown's victory. In this new form, the legislation would not require companies to recognize unions based on card signing alone. Instead, the National Labor Relations Board—one of the slowest moving federal agencies alive—would be directed to hold “expedited” secret ballot votes. The theory is that quicker elections would leave anti-union managers with less time to influence how workers vote by firing union committee members or threatening to close the plant. The flaw in that theory involves the NLRB itself, which has yet to schedule dozens of representation votes in California sought by the new National Union of Healthcare Workers 12 months ago—a typical, if unusually massive, display of bureaucratic dithering and delay.
The idea that this same agency is going to turn on a dime, and per some Congressional directive, start conducting elections within five- or 10-day time-frames defies all known experience with it. The watering-down of EFCA—and Obama's delay in bringing the bill to a vote (despite what one union leader calls “a firm commitment to do that in December”)—follows a familiar pattern. A variation of the same thing happened under Jimmy Carter and then, in worse fashion, with Bill Clinton.
In 1977-78, President Carter pressured unions to go along with weaker amendments to the NLRA than they originally sought. Then, after being weakened during a Senate battle over the Panama Canal treaty, the White House failed to marshal what was then a much larger pro-labor majority to overcome a fatal GOP filibuster.
Fifteen years later, Bill Clinton didn't even bother to introduce NLRA changes. Instead, he placated the AFL-CIO by appointing a presidential commission to study the subject. This panel frittered away the only two years during Clinton 's presidency when Democrats controlled Congress. Its reform proposals were dead on arrival by 1994, after voters swept Newt Gingrich and the GOP back into power in mid-term elections.
Knowing this history very well, 10 top labor leaders trooped over to the White House last June for a private audience with Obama. There, they were informed, in no uncertain terms, that “fixing health care” had to come first and EFCA would be next. Some objections were raised about this sequencing, but, overall, the joint AFL-CIO/Change To Win/NEA delegation politely went along with the plan.
Of course, back then, no one thought “fixing health care” would take so long or that “Obamacare” would become such an unworkable mess that even Massachusetts voters would end up electing a Republican to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. To keep labor in line, the administration has, for the last seven months, repeatedly dangled the carrot of labor law reform whenever leading unionists joined other critics of the president's health care plan who lamented its lack of a public option, expanded access to Medicare, or other single-payer-strengthening features.
Earlier this month, unions were even prodded to accept, in postponed form, a controversial tax on more expensive private medical plans. If enacted, this 40 percent excise tax will encourage further cost-shifting by management, leave workers without bargaining rights more exposed to that already devastating trend, and, ultimately, saddle union members with higher co-payments and deductibles as well.
In marathon talks with the White House that produced this self-defeating deal, labor reps were reminded once again, that derailing such “reforms” would be a victory for the GOP and, thus, the death knell of employee free choice.
Now, in a real case of déjà vu all over again, trade unionists are seeing the latest opportunity to strengthen workplace rights, as promised by the Democrats, simply vanish. As one dismayed union official in Washington , D.C. , told me: “It's the end of labor law reform for another generation.” Of course, that unpleasant truth hasn't stopped other labor movement talking heads from being in deep public denial. On January 24, the federation's Legislative Director Bill Samuel told Workers Independent News: “No, we don't see it [EFCA] being dead. We're obviously re-evaluating our strategy and looking at the timing to take up the Employee Free Choice Act. But we have no intention to back off that commitment.”
At a January 26 forum in D.C. sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Anna Burger from Change to Win and SEIU also beat around the bush, in dazed and confused fashion: “If we really want to get this economy going again, we need to figure out away to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Does 60 matter? Sure it matters. Is there a way that we can try to make the Senate understand that we have to do what's good for America , what's good for working families? I don't know. That's the challenge we have…”
It might have helped if Obama, when delivering his “state of the union” address a day later, had bothered to address the state of unions or mention EFCA once. He didn't, of course, thus signaling to the assembled solons that the time for labor law reform has come and gone again.
In the wake of this demoralizing setback, the few unions that are still trying to do new organizing must develop a fallback strategy for defending and extending collective bargaining that doesn't depend on amending federal law. That process won't be easy. And it will certainly be more productive if undertaken from the bottom up, rather than just the top down.
Even before labor's 60th vote in the Senate went missing, labor's inside-the-Beltway generals have, for months, been overly preoccupied with making grand plans for a new wave of private sector organizing—all based on the now crumbled edifice of EFCA and its long-ago jettisoned card check mechanism. Now, they're not even leveling with the thousands of labor activists who've campaigned for EFCA since 2007 about where things really stand with that fight.
Turning political defeat—not to mention a lot of inchoate working class anger—into new workplace organizing will require a grassroots rallying of the troops through networks like Jobs With Justice and the workers center movement.
In Massachusetts, JWJ is already planning a day-long labor “troublemaker's school” in Boston on February 27 to help develop a local “Plan B” for more “bargaining to organize” that would better use remaining pockets of union strength before they disappear like the Martha Coakley signs in my neighborhood.
And in late April, more than 1,000 labor and community activists from around the country will descend on Detroit for a national Labor Notes conference, an even-larger brainstorming session for stewards, elected officers and organizers from an array of unions and worker centers. In scores of workshops and plenaries, they will try to sort out, with a minimum of the usual labor bluster, what works and what doesn't in strikes, bargaining, political action, and new member recruitment.
From the ashes of the old, something new and different must arise pretty soon, if unions are going to make it in this country. Otherwise, the January 19 election night in Massachusetts that drove old EFCA down could leave labor nearly as lost and forlorn as the long-ago cause of Dixie.
Steve Early is a labor journalist and lawyer who dealt with the NLRB for many years while working as a CWA organizer in New England . He is the author of Embedded with Organized Labor, which reports on the history of labor law reform efforts over the last 30 years. You can get it here. A shorter version of this article originally appeared in The Boston Globe. Early can be reached at lsupport@aol.com.
Dixie Chicks could be Labor Day entertainment Could the Dixie Chicks roost in Paducah on Labor Day? “I've been in contact with their promoter in Nashville ,” said Frances Willey, Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee treasurer. “I'll be talking with her again. It would be wonderful if they could come.” The Dixie Chicks are a country music group currently made up of Martie Maguire, Emily Robison and lead singer Natalie Maines. The trio has sold nearly 31 million albums in the U.S. Meanwhile, Willey hopes volunteers will show up at the Area Council Hall Feb. 25 at 5 p.m. for the next Labor Day Committee meeting. “We've got to have some help,” she said. “We can't put on a program with six people – that's how many we had at our last meeting.” Jeff Wiggins, council president and Labor Day Committee, president agrees. “We can't do three days with six people.” Plans call for the program to return to its traditional three-day schedule – Saturday, Sunday and Labor Day. “We had to cut back to just Labor Day last year,” Wiggins said. Wiggins said he would like to see at least two representatives of area unions at the Feb. 25 meeting. “We need new blood, especially if we are going to have big-name entertainment like the Dixie Chicks,” he said. The Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee is an all-volunteer group that puts on the city's annual Labor Day weekend program. It features food, flea market vendors, political speaking, free musical entertainment and the Labor Day parade. “You've got to have good entertainment to draw a good crowd to Carson Park ,” Wiggins said. “The Dixie Chicks would do that.” The parade goes up Broadway. The other festivities are at Carson Park . “If we are going to get the Dixie Chicks it will take a lot more money than we normally raise,” Wiggins said. “But they would be the kind of attraction that would draw a huge crowd. We like to say our program is the best free Labor Day show in this area. The Dixie Chicks would make it quite a show.” Anyone wishing to volunteer for the committee may contact Willey by phone. Her number is (270) 554-1627. |
Union members, chickens, Col. Sanders and Scott Brown
By BERRY CRAIG
The union-haters must still be in hog heaven over an AFL-CIO-sponsored poll that showed most Massachusetts union households supported Republican Scott Brown over union-endorsed Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to succeed the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
The margin was 49 to 46 percent. The numbers remind me again of Pogo's apt observation: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Coakley. She was clearly the pro-union candidate, according to Robert Haynes, president of the Bay State labor federation.
Nonetheless, Karen Ackerman, the national AFL-CIO's political director, admitted to the Wall Street Journal that “What happened in Massachusetts is that working families did not see the Democratic candidate as being on their side.”
Apparently, more than a few union members blame the still sluggish economy on President Barack Obama and the Democrats. Jeff Wiggins and Mike Hall don't get it.
“Bush and Cheney's warmed over Reagan era ‘trickle-down' economics caused the economic mess we're in, and yet people want to punish Obama and the Democrats?” asked Wiggins, area council president. “That's crazy.”
Brown is “a Bush-Cheney clone” on the economy, wrote Hall on the AFL-CIO Now Blog. “Not only does [Brown]…believe the answer to the economic crisis is more tax cuts for the wealthy; he opposes a proposed fee on Wall Street firms that received taxpayer bailouts and then gave extravagant bonuses to executives,” he added.
In another posting, Hall quoted Haynes who said Brown snubbed Massachusetts unions. Haynes said Brown “refused to fill out the AFL-CIO questionnaire or appear at the AFL-CIO candidates' forum to tell workers directly what he stands for. As a candidate, Martha Coakley filled out our questionnaire and appeared at our candidates' forum to speak directly to us about where she stands.”
Coakley is for the Employee Free Choice Act, which the AFL-CIO says “would allow workers, not corporations, to choose whether and how they want to form a union.” (For the record, the proposed legislation does not outlaw the secret ballot.)
Brown, according to Hall, is against the Employee Free Choice Act.
Anyway, Brad Woodhouse, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, told the WSJ that "the election in Massachusetts involved the same type of frustration and anger at Washington and the current state of the economy that swept President Obama into office in 2008.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told AFL-CIO Now Blog writer Tula Connell that “the American people are justifiably uncertain and fearful in these tough economic times.” He said the outcome in Massachusetts “…should be a sobering reminder to candidates running in 2010.”
Trumka backed Obama in 2008. I did, too.
But he warned, “The American people are urgently expecting results from Washington . If elected officials want the support of working families, they need to fight to win legislation on jobs, health care and financial regulation. Americans need a champion who will fight for their cause.”
Brown isn't the champion Trumka has in mind. He called the Republican's win “…a giant step backward for working families. Brown has already promised to be the 41st vote for the Republican party of NO on crucial improvements for working men and women.”
I'll add a Presbyterian “amen” to brother Trumka's remarks.
Brown, who favored the McCain-Palin ticket, wants a “trickle down” encore. So will whoever wins the GOP nomination in 2012.
That's why this union card-carrying Hubert Humphrey Democrat expects to be in Obama's corner again in 2012.
I've been here before. So have some of my union brothers and sisters, including many in Massachusetts .
Back in 1980, we weren't exactly wild about President Jimmy Carter. We voted for him four years before. But we were pulling for Kennedy, who was more to our liking, to get the Democratic presidential nomination.
When Carter was re-nominated, we got behind him. The other guy was Ronald Reagan, the most anti-union president since Herbert Hoover.
“A union member voting for Reagan would be like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders” said a sign in a union hall in 1980 in Paducah , Ky. , where I teach. “A union member voting Republican would be like a rabbit voting for hunting season to open,” suggested Kentucky Labor Secretary J.R Gray, a former Democratic state legislator and an ex-Machinists union official.
Admittedly, the whole Democratic Party hasn't always been with us.
In the 1930s, segregationist Southern Democrats in Congress joined their anti-labor Yankee Republican brethren in battling unions, FDR and the New Deal, all of which they slammed as “socialist.” Sound familiar? Some of today's “Blue Dog Democrats” are allied with the GOP in opposing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Yet by and large, the Democrats have done much more for unions than Republicans have. (The few liberal, pro-union Republicans, including Sen. Ed Brooke of Massachusetts , are long gone from Congress.)
Ted Kennedy earned a 93-percent pro-labor lifetime score from the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education. As a senator, Obama notched a 98 percent COPE rating.
I'd bet big money Coakley would have scored in the 90s. I'd also wager a tidy sum that Brown's COPE tally will be a whole lot lower.
By Norman Lear
(From the Huffington Post)
 |
Yesterday, driving to work I listened to Rush Limbaugh read a letter he'd written to President Obama. I listen to Limbaugh because he reminds me of the carnival barkers of my youth, men who were selling elixirs, snake oil, or inviting you for an extra 50 cents to check out the half man/half woman in the secreted tent. They were quaint and harmless compared to the barking Limbaugh who yesterday would have us believe -- he actually said this! -- the President was seeking to destroy the country so that he might then save it. The rest of the day, last night, and this morning I couldn't stop thinking about the ugly, vindictive, dispiriting and reprehensible things barker Limbaugh had to say about our President. I ached to answer him but couldn't find the words. And then I remembered a scene in an episode of All In The Family when Maude, who later starred in her own series, came to visit Archie. Archie was sitting in his chair. Maude was standing beside him and they were fighting about the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Finally, Archie who was rewriting history in this argument said something so misguided and distasteful that Maude could not find the words to respond with. All but choking with frustration, her entire body seemingly ready to burst, all she could say was: "You're Fat!" After a lifetime of trying to reach the El Rushbos of my life, all I can say is: "You're FAT!" |
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Signed Copies of Berry Craig's book, True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon and Burgoo are still available from the Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee Inc., which puts on Paducah's annual Labor Day program.
The books are $19.99 and all proceeds go to the Labor Day Committee.
Books are available by mail – at no extra charge for postage.
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Want to speak your mind on an issue?
Send what you have to Berry Craig, newsletter editor, at bcraig8960@newwavecomm.net