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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 6, Number 3, March, 2005
Hicks is expected to be W.C. Young Award recipient
Lewis Hicks is expected to be named the 2005 recipient of the W.C. Young Award by the council executive board when it meets March 3.
Hicks, a member of PACE Local 5-680, is a council trustee, longtime labor activist and mayor of La Center. “He is the first mayor to get the W.C. Young Award,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “I can't think of anyone more deserving of the honor than Lewis.”
The Young Award is named for the late W.C. Young, a national labor and civil rights leader from Paducah . It is the highest honor the council bestows.
Hicks will received the award at the 2005 W.C. Young Award dinner, tentatively set for 6 p.m. April 14 at the PACE Local 5-550 union hall, 2525 Cairo Road. Traditionally, the doors open a half hour before the meal, which will cost the usual $10 per person.
Anybody wishing to pay by check may do so. Checks should be written to the Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO.
Delegates nominate candidates for the Young Award. “The executive board names the recipient,” Wiggins said. “Lewis was the only one nominated. The fact that nobody else was nominated shows how much the delegates think of Lewis.”
Wiggins said that to save money for the council, he will ask local unions to chip in to help pay for the food. “PACE is donating their hall. Of course, we will recognize all of the unions that contribute toward the dinner,“ he said.
Young spent 46 years in the labor movement, starting in his hometown. Before he retired, he was named director of the AFL-CIO's COPE Region 10, which encompassed Kentucky , Ohio and Tennessee . He died in 1996 at age 77.
Young joined the union movement in 1941, signing on with the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks. Young also was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and in the Democratic Party.
Young worked in many political campaigns. He served as an aide to Gov. Edward T. Breathitt, a Hopkinsville Democrat.
Young received the first W.C. Young Award in 1994. The other award winners were Bill Sanders, 1995; B.J. Bond, 1996; Bill Hack, 1997; George and Martha Wiggins, 1998; Harold Kindred, 1999; Ken Tyler, 2000; Larry Sanderson, 2001; State Rep. J.R. Gray, D-Benton, 2002; Labor Secretary Joe Norsworthy, 2003; and Wayne “Windy” Wallace, 2004.Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
All candidates won without opposition in February balloting
The race for council financial secretary-treasurer between the president and former vice president of PACE Local 5-550 at the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant was no contest after all.
Philip Foley, the union president, withdrew before February's vote. Donna Steele, who was the union's vice president, won without opposition.
“Philip called me at the last minute and asked to withdraw, “said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “He said that he had too much to do. Most union presidents have more than a few irons in the fire.”
Bonnie Edwards chose not to seek another term as financial secretary-treasurer because of the illness of her husband, Aaron Edwards.
Bonnie Edwards, a member of AIM-UNITE! Chapter 22, was elected trustee, a post Steele held.
All other officers, each an incumbent, ran opposed, said Wiggins, who won another term as president. Others who won reelection included Vice President Benny Adair, IAM 1720; Recording Secretary Hardy Williams, Retirees' Council; and Trustees Wayne Chambers, USWA 665; Lewis Hicks, PACE 5-680; and David Childress, IAM 1294.Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
‘Right to work unions' are hurting the labor movement
By JEFF WIGGINS
Council President
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a letter Jeff Wiggins wrote to the national AFL-CIO in response to a questionnaire about the future of unions. It was to be posted on the AFL-CIO's Internet website, http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/ourfuture/proposals.cfm
We as the labor movement are at a critical time in our future for working men and women in this country and as labor leaders of the world. Our destiny and future will be decided in the next four years. Will we rise once again from smoldering ashes, or will we finally fade away as the embers in them? Will we as the labor movement commit to nurturing our grass roots or are we going to continue spot fertilizing and leaving only splotches of grass growing in this country? We believe as the Western Kentucky Area Council of the AFL-CIO if we are to grow, some drastic changes must be made in areas such as finances, programs, policies, and the way in which we lead or are led.
As you know our finances on the state and local levels are not the best. If local unions and internationals are not affiliated with the national, state, and local federations, then is that no worse than saying that they are right-to-work unions? Are they not helping to carry their fair share of the load in helping labor grow? If all of the local and International unions were carrying their part in helping, we could revamp the labor movement. We could carry out the programs and campaigns which the national AFL-CIO asks of us. If we can't find a way for everyone to pay their fair share and be active, then we should just jump in a hole and cover up our heads with dirt, but we are not ready for that, are you?
We feel that the policy of the AFL-CIO should take a hard line and strong stand on working people's issues and rights. We feel that during the Regan administration, when the Air Traffic Controllers went on strike, we as labor did not stand strong as one united front. We feel it showed us as weak. We need policies that will give us clout with our members and show that we are as strong as ever. We need to define our issues and not let others define our issues for us. We need to make new policies to strengthen our cause. We as the labor movement are responsible for the middle class and the American dream. We must at all costs try and protect it.
We must be leaders of strength, knowledge, trust, and be able to communicate, and also get along with others, so that we gain the respect and trust of those who follow us. The powers to be that want to destroy our labor unions are many, and would love to destroy labor movement because they think that we are weak, as, frankly, do most of our own members. Most of our own people don't want to hear what the labor leaders want to tell them because they think we are weak, can't be trusted, and will not take a stand. Who do you think they are listening to? I can tell you in Western Kentucky who they are listening to, their pastors. Why do you think they are listening to them? It is because they are strongly rooted in their beliefs and they will take a stand. It's all about showing people that you are strong in your beliefs and your will take a stand for them. They have replaced our labor leaders on the shop floor and at the work place with the clergy in the pulpit.
The egos of the labor leaders from top to bottom is one of the many reasons for our decline. As president of my council, I can tell you that every local or international union is as important to our survival as another. There is no one union more important than another. It takes us all working together to be the labor movement. It is a must for labor leaders to check their egos at the door to secure a future for working men and women in this country. If we are unable to get along and function together, then we have no grass roots and the winds from the White House can just strip us from the ground and make us wither away. If we have strong leaders who will fertilize us with knowledge, and water us with finances, and give us strength and trust in our topsoil, then and only then will we be planted with strong grass roots. Every once in a while you get a few dandelions; they appear to be flowers, but down deep those egos can really destroy a lawn.
One of the worst things we can do is become that which we fight daily, corporate greed. We have gotten ourselves caught up in trying to be like them. We try to model too many programs and ideas of theirs and make them our own. Corporations have learned from our programs but we have nothing to gain from theirs. You can not replace the years of experience on the shop floor or in the workplace with young adults out of college. We need to up size the labor movement, not downsize. There is great strength in numbers. We don't need to combine councils. We need to build new ones and fill them up with new delegates. We don't need national reps, we need state directors to keep the grass roots of this labor movement growing. We must as Internationals and local labor unions not lose our identities. We must make every labor person feel that he or she is just important as the other person. If you prepare the soil right and maintain it, you will have grass roots that can withstand just about anything
Please feel free to contact us and let us know if you need us for anything.
Fraternally,
President Jeffrey L. Wiggins
Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
What's new in your local? We want it for the newsletter
We appreciate your help in making our newsletter a success. However, with a little more help from you, we think we can make the newsletter even better.
So tell us what's going on in your local. For example, let us know who won a recent election or earned an award. Tell us your opinion on a union issue or issues. If it is news about unions and union people, we'll print it.
If you believe something is newsworthy drop an email to Jeff Wiggins, Council president, at jlwiggins2@juno.net, or Berry Craig, newsletter editor, at bcraig8960@charter.net .