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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- Kentucky
Volume 7, Number 4, April 2006
Young dinner is April 27 at Washington Street church
The annual W.C. Young Award dinner will be April 27 at Washington Street Baptist Church . “This year's recipient, Commissioner Robert Coleman, is a longtime member of the church and a longtime union member,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “Right now, he is labor's only friend on the city commission.”
Tickets will be $10 each. The doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the dinner starts at 7. Reservations are available from Wiggins at (270) 898-2558 or from Benny Adair, council vice president, at (270) 527-1780. “We will also be observing Worker's Memorial Day, which is April 28, as part of the program on the 27th,” Wiggins said.
The Young Award, the highest honor the Area Council bestows, is named for the late W.C. Young, a national labor and civil rights leader from Paducah . “W.C. Young was Robert Coleman's cousin,” Wiggins said. “I've heard Commissioner Coleman say it was W.C. Young who got him started in the union movement more than 50 years ago.”
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State fed follows council nods in state judicial races
Following recommendations from the Area Council, the Kentucky State AFL-CIO Executive Board endorsed Rick Johnson of Symsonia for the state Supreme Court and Donna Dixon and Shea Nickell, both of Paducah , for the state court of appeals.
The E-board also endorsed Carroll Hubbard, a Paducah Democrat, for state senate and Stephen Rudy, a West Paducah Republican, for the House of Representatives. Council delegates voted to make no recommendation in either race.
In addition, the state AFL-CIO voted to make no recommendation in the Democratic primary for Congress from the First District. Council delegates recommended former Congressman Tom Barlow of Paducah for endorsement. “But the Hopkinsville and Henderson councils recommended his opponent, Eric Streit, who is also from Paducah ,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president and state E-board member. Jim Bloink of Scottsville is the other Democrat in the primary.
The state E-board voted no recommendation in the House race between incumbent Frank Rasche, D-Paducah, and his challenger, Bruce Brockenborough, a Paducah Republican. Likewise, there was no recommendation in the contest between State Rep. Melvin Hendley, R-Murray, and his Democratic challenger, Hal Kemp, also of Murray . The council took no action on either the Rasche-Brockenborough or Hendley-Kemp contest.
Earlier, the state AFL-CIO endorsed for re-election State Reps. J.R. Gray, D-Benton; Fred Nesler, D-Mayfield; and Mike Cherry, D-Princeton. “Getting J.R. reelected is our top priority,” Wiggins said.Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
Local unionists helped swell the rally crowd in Frankfort
Western Kentucky was well represented at the March 7 rally in Frankfort against right-to-work and for the prevailing wage, according to Jeff Wiggins, council president.
"I saw Gary Seay [business manager of IBEW Local 816 in Paducah ] and Larry Sanderson [business manager of Paducah-based Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 184]," Wiggins said. "We had a good contingent from the council -- Bubba Dawes, Benny Adair, Larry Johnson, Wayne Chambers. I also saw Terry Beane, Alton Cunningham, Mike Stone and Don Mitchell.”
Thousands of union members from across Kentucky rallied on the capitol steps. "We got good news, too," Wiggins said. The House Labor and Industry Committee, chaired by Rep. J.R. Gray, D-Benton, voted 11-3 to defeat right-to-work legislation and 11-2 against repealing the state prevailing wage law. “J.R. spoke to us and said he could have just let the bills die without a hearing or bringing them to a vote," Wiggins said. "But he said he called hearings and a vote to reject them more dramatically. That's exactly what happened."
The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that "Democratic lawmakers told union members that the quick death of the bills shows Kentucky 's support of organized labor, support that would grow if they vote to remove Republican legislators in the fall." "That's exactly right," Wiggins said. "There were some Republicans who voted our way, but if the Republicans get control of the House, then we'll get right-to-work and lose the prevailing wage.
"J.R. Gray, organized labor's best friend in Frankfort , would lose his committee chairmanship. All that's standing between us and a right-to-work law and repeal of the prevailing wage is a Democratic House. We've got to take back the Senate, too."
Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, made passage of a right-to-work law and repeal of the prevailing wage law top priorities in this session of the legislature. "I believe the sleeping giant has awakened," the C-J quoted Gray. Pro-union Democrats have lost several legislative seats over the years, he said, but "I think in 2006, it's going to be an entirely different story."
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Brockenborough and Rasche are against right-to-work
Both candidates for the Second District state House seat are against a right-to-work law and for the prevailing wage. “How can anybody be opposed to higher wages?” Republican Bruce Brockenborough asked delegates at the March council meeting.
He added, “My position is that neither the governor nor the state should undertake any policy that lowers wages. We need to be promoting the highest wages possible. Whether you are a member of a union or not a member of a union, prevailing wage and no right-to-work law raises your wages. The whole tide comes up. It makes the commonwealth stronger and makes us economically more viable.”
Brockenborough's views surprised most delegates. He is a cousin of Jim Paxton, editor of the Paducah Sun. The newspaper endorsed Ernie Fletcher for governor and editorialized in favor of right-to-work and repealing the state's prevailing wage law on public construction projects such as schools.
Brockenborough acknowledged that his is of the Paxton family. Be he said he had no connection with the Paducah Sun , adding that he would be shocked if the paper endorsed him.
“I run my own business, Hannan Supply,” he said. “This is a company that has never crossed a picket line, though it has been asked to several times."
Brockenborough wants to unseat incumbent Democrat Frank Rasche. Both men are from Paducah . Rasche and Brockenborough attended a rally in support of the prevailing wage at Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 184's union hall in Paducah . Rasche has said he also opposes a right-to-work law and wants to keep the prevailing wage law.
A council delegate asked Brockenborough what should happen if newspaper carriers at the Sun wanted to organize a union. “The right to organize is a basic civil liberty,” he said. “Everybody has a right to organize. I've had the same question from KEA. ‘Do we have the right to organize?' Everybody in this room, everybody outside this room, has the right to organize. I don't care for whom you work.”
Delegates declined to recommend for endorsement either Brockenborough or Rasche. Rasche is not considered consistently union-friendly, according to Jeff Wiggins, council president. “Brockenborough said the right things,” Wiggins said. “But if the Republicans win the House, we lose J.R. Gray as chairman of the Labor and Industry Committee. Labor has no better friend in Frankfort than J.R. If the Republicans take the House, they will oust him as chairman, and we'll become a right-to-work state. The Republicans would also repeal the prevailing wage.”
Brockenborough said he'd love to have union support, but promised, “Whether I get it or not…I will be your friend, and I will be here.”
He said that when he decided to run, he phoned the local GOP chair and said, “'I'm not with you on the governor's agenda. I'm not with you on this issue, this issue or this issue and I said right to work and prevailing wage as two of them.…If I do what's right by my district, and [Senate Republican leader] David Williams and the governor say that's fine but we are going to oppose you in the primary your next time around, so be it.
“In my book it's community, then commonwealth, then party. You vote for what's right for your community, you do what's right for the commonwealth, and if that fits in with your party, that's great. If they don't like it, they can oppose me in the primary.”Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
Holland says Kentucky labor's ‘work has just begun'
Gov. Ernie Fletcher couldn't convince the General Assembly to pass a right-to-work law and repeal the prevailing wage. "But our work has just begun," Joe Holland warned delegates at the March council meeting. "We've got to win every time. He only has to win once."
Holland , the national AFL-CIO's state director, presented a computerized "course of action" against "Fletcher's low road to lower wages" at the March council meeting.
He said the idea of the program was to "stop Fletcher's anti-worker legislation...and in the long term build the labor movement in Kentucky that we deserve."
The House Labor and Industry committee voted down Fletcher's right-to-work and prevailing wage proposals by lopsided margins. Even some committee Republicans opposed the bills. Holland said right-to-work really means "right-to-work for less." Wages are lower in right-to-work states than in non-right-to-work states, he said.
Holland said average wages in Kentucky are $16.86 an hour, but only $13.61 an hour in neighboring Tennessee , a right-to-work state. Right-to-work laws also enable non-union workers at a jobsite with a union to enjoy union-negotiated wages and benefits without joining the union or paying a service fee to the union.
"You're sitting there negotiating and you have 100 employees," Holland said. "Sixty of them are signed up and 40 are over there scabbing and they get every benefit you negotiate. That's what right to work is."
Holland said repealing the prevailing wage enriches bosses at the expense of workers. By calling for repeal of the prevailing wage, Fletcher is telling construction company owners, "you go ahead and make all the profits you can make," according to Holland.
Right-to-work proponents have vowed not to give up the fight. "We've still got a Republican governor and a Republican senate," Holland said. "The Republicans took 8 seats in the House in 2004. If they take 6 in the fall of this year, we have lost the House."
Jeff Wiggins, council president, agreed. "We've got to hold the House. We've got to keep Rep. J.R. Gray as chairman of the House Labor and Industry Committee.”
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Streit stumps for union votes at March council meeting
Eric Streit, a Democratic candidate for Congress, came stumping for union votes at the March council meeting, even though delegates had unanimously recommended his opponent, Tom Barlow, for endorsement. Streit and Barlow are from Paducah .
"For the last 12 years, the Republican Party has created a culture of corruption that has led to outrageous fuel prices [and]...spiraling deficits," said Streit. "...They are passing legislation that rewards corporations for sending our good middle class jobs overseas to Third World countries like China and Mexico , and they are destroying our middle class."
Streit said he comes from a union family. "My grandfather over in Harlan County was an early member of the United Mine Workers in the 20s and 30s when being a union member meant you had to fight and be willing to die to get a living wage, the possibility of health care and a pension," he said. "My other grandfather was a Boilermaker with the Illinois Central Railroad in Paducah ."
He said his father was a union Sheet Metal Worker. Streit said "all of us have benefited from" the hard work and sacrifice of earlier generations of union members.
Streit, Barlow and Jim Bloink of Scottsville are running in the May 16 Democratic primary. Barlow was elected to Congress in 1992, but Republican Ed Whitfield defeated him two years later. Whitfield has been in Congress since. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is time to send special interest Ed Whitfield back home,” Streit said.
Meanwhile, other candidates sought council support at the March meeting. Van Newberry, who wants to unseat McCracken County Judge Executive Danny Orazine, told Area Council delegates he has earned the endorsement of the only union in county government.
AFSCME Local 2821 is behind Newberry, according to the candidate. "I had the inside track with these guys because I'm a member of ASCME 9170 in southern Illinois ,” he said. Newberry repeated his opposition to a right-to-work law. He also pledged to "reduce the bureaucracy" in the county judge-executive's office and use the money saved to hire four more deputy sheriffs.
The council took no action in the Newberry-Orazine race. There is no Republican running in the primary.
John Via, Hoppy Hicks, Donna Dixon and Will Kautz also addressed the delegates. The council endorsed Via, a candidate for McCracken County commissioner, and Hicks, an incumbent Marshall County magistrate, in February.
Last month, the council added a recommendation for endorsement of Dixon , a district judge who is running for the state Court of Appeals from the First District, Division 2. Kautz is running for Dixon 's old seat. The council took no action in Kautz's race. The council also recommended for endorsement Shea Nickell, a candidate for Court of Appeals in the First District, Division 1.
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Judge candidates on what they'll do for all, not just you
By JEFF WIGGINS
Council President
The big rally in Frankfort on March 7 showed what unions can do when we stand together in solidarity. AFL-CIO-affiliated and non-affiliated unions came together to help defeat threats to all of us – a right-to-work law and repeal of the prevailing wage.
The rally should be a lesson to all of us. We can accomplish great things when we stand united, when each of us puts the good of the whole over the good of ourselves as individuals. That's true when we rally in Frankfort, walk a picket line, or endorse candidates.
All of us have our personal likes and dislikes when it comes to candidates and office-holders. Maybe a candidate or office-holder has helped us, or not helped us, on a personal matter. But when it comes time to endorse, it behooves all of us to judge the candidate or the incumbent on what he or she will do – or has done – for the union movement. The only doubt – the only question – we should have about a candidate is whether he or she is good for organized labor. Candidate endorsements – or recommendations for endorsement – aren't always unanimous. They won't be in the future and that's fine. All of us should vote our consciences. But when we vote for or against a candidate, let's all make sure our vote is in the best interest of our movement. “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” is our state motto. It's a good motto for our movement, too.Return to Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council Home Page
Got news? Email it to Berry Craig at bcraig8960@charter.net or Jeff Wiggins at JLWiggins2@Juno.com.