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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 8, Number 6, June, 2007
| Jeff Wiggins, Council president, and Bill Londrigan, state AFL-CIO president, are happy the old state Workers Memorial has found a good home in Paducah. (Photo by Berry Craig) |
Anderson, Henderson are faces of Workers Memorial Day
Bill Londrigan came with statistics for Workers Memorial Day. Bob Reynolds and Berry Craig put faces on the numbers.
Kentucky 's fatal work-related injury rate is 75 percent higher than the national average," said Londrigan, state AFL-CIO president. He added that, on average, 152 Americans are killed at work or die from job-related illnesses every day.
“To most people, those statistics are faceless - they are nameless," said Reynolds, the 2007 W.C. Young Award recipient. "They read it in the newspaper or they hear it on TV, but it doesn't have a direct impact on them. Unfortunately, our society is not as sensitive to workplace injuries and occupational-related diseases as it should be."
Reynolds retired as president and directing general chairman of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 19, Railroad Division.
Reynolds, 64, lives on a Marshall County farm near Sharpe. He spent 41 years in the
IAMAW and joined the union at the old Illinois Central Railroad shops, where, he said, Kenneth Anderson needlessly lost his life on the job in 1979. "He was married and had three sons," Reynolds added.
Anderson, a Sheet Metal Worker, and an apprentice were sent to fix a balky heater close to a large overhead crane that ran on tracks. "The crane was padlocked and another man had the key to make sure nobody used the crane while Kenneth and the apprentice were working," Reynolds said .
Anderson and the apprentice climbed about 15 feet atop the heater, confident the crane was immobilized, according to Reynolds.
Somebody in management decided to move the crane, he added. "Management took a pair of bolt cutters, broke the lock and put an operator in the crane," Reynolds said. "The operator didn't know Kenneth and the apprentice were there. He couldn't see them."
The apprentice saw the crane coming, jumped and survived. The heavy steel machine crushed Anderson . "They had to use a torch to cut him out," Reynolds remembered.
He added that worker death "statistics are not just numbers. When people die, they leave wives and husbands and children. Our challenge today is what it's always been - to do everything we can to create safe and healthy working environments. Every worker is entitled to a clean, safe, healthy working environment.
"It is up to us to get the job done. Corporate America is not going to do it. The politicians are not going to do it unless we put pressure on them."
Londrigan said worker safety and health are not a priority in President George W. Bush's administration. "Inspections are down and injury rates and occupational diseases are up."
But he praised the Kentucky legislature for approving "the strongest mine safety bill in the country" earlier this year.
Londrigan, who was accompanied by Steve Earle, a UMWA international representative, and Larry Jaggers, state AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, thanked the council for adopting the state Workers Memorial stone.
The 7-ton marker stood in front of the old state AFL-CIO headquarters building in Frankfort , which was closed and sold. "We couldn't have thought of a better location in the whole Commonwealth of Kentucky for it to go than Paducah ," he said.
The monument, which Londrigan and Jeff Wiggins, Council president, rededicated in a ceremony after the Workers Memorial Day observance, stands on the Council hall lawn, next to the busy I-24 Business Loop. "It is in a very fitting, very noticeable place," Londrigan said. "It looks like a little park where people can come and maybe sit there a minute and think about safety on the job."
Berry Craig, newsletter editor and Council sergeant-at-arms, also spoke at the program. He told about Samuel Henderson, for whom the Area Council hall is named. Henderson was killed on the job at the old B.F. Goodrich plant in Calvert City in 1989.
Wiggins, council president, read the names of every Kentuckian killed at work in 2006. "My predecessor [Council President Glenn Dowdy] always said it was a shame we have more game wardens than OSHA inspectors in Kentucky,” he said.
The first Workers Memorial Day was observed in Paducah and nationally in 1989. April 28 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and also the day of a similar remembrance in Canada , according to the AFL-CIO. Union members around the world now mark April 28 as an International Day of Mourning.
Decades of struggle by workers and their unions have resulted in significant improvements in working conditions,” the AFL-CIO says. “But the toll of workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths remains enormous. Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions more are injured or diseased because of their jobs.”
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Benny Adair, council vice president, presents Bob Reynolds, a fellow Machinist, with the 2007 W.C. Young Award. (Photo by Berry Craig)
Like Young, Reynolds embraced the cause of labor and equality
The W.C. Young Award, the highest honor the Council bestows, is named for a national labor and civil rights leader from Paducah .
Bob Reynolds, the 2007 Young Award recipient, was also a righter of civil wrongs, says R. Thomas Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
“You may not know that this gentleman helped repair a tear in the fabric of a great union,” Buffenbarger explained. “This man was part of a powerful moment in the history of our union.”
It happened in 2000 when Reynolds was secretary of the IAMAW Law Committee. He introduced a measure at the union's annual convention urging that African American Machinists, who were segregated into separate locals by IAMAW rules until 1948, “be made members in the fullest extent possible,” Buffenbarger said. Reynolds' appeal, he added, “was very powerful and very emotional. He said it was time that we change the record to fully recognize the contributions made to our union by people of color. There were about 2,000 people sitting in that room. There wasn't a dissenting vote.”
Buffenbarger was one of several union leaders, politicians and others who paid tribute to Reynolds, a retired president and directing general chairman of IAMAW District 19. The dinner program drew nearly 90 guests. Reynolds spent 41 years in the union. He joined the IAMAW in 1964 at the old Illinois Central Railroad Shops in Paducah . “In a union, everybody is supposed to be equal,” said Reynolds, who lives on a farm near Sharpe. “There should be no differences among members except for seniority.”
Buffenbarger said Reynolds was more than an outstanding union leader. “He is a close personal friend of mine and my hunting buddy.”
He added, “Bob was never looking out for the interests of the international union as an entity. He looked out for the members that make up our union.”
Reynolds was the 15 th recipient of the W.C. Young Award. Young was the first honoree in 1994. ”We honor him for his leadership and abilities to prevail on issues of civil rights and social justice,” said Benny Adair, Council vice president who presented the award to Reynolds, his fellow Machinist. “We honor him because of his compassion for his brothers and his sisters in the labor movement. We honor him by giving this award to other great union members that have followed in his footsteps.”
The other 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; J.R. Gray, 2002; Joe Norsworthy, 2003; Wayne Wallace, 2004; Lewis Hicks, 2005; and Robert Coleman, 2006.
Young died in 1996 at age 77. “W.C. is sitting up there in heaven and saying we have got another good one,” Carol Young, his widow, told the crowd of almost 90 people at MLC's Restaurant. She added that like her husband, Reynolds “loves his church and loves his union.”
Young was a member of Washington Street Baptist Church . Reynolds goes to Rosebower Baptist Church . “We are supposed to love one another – to do what we can for one another,” Reynolds said. “The challenge is for us to help those less fortunate than we are.” He added that unions and churches do that.
arol Young and Nancy Reynolds, the honoree's wife, were presented bouquets of roses. Buffenbarger also thanked Nancy Reynolds “for putting up with all of this for all of those years.” He joshed, “If the Machinists could designate saints, Nancy would be at the top of the list.”
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Machinists go to Washington to say ‘Enough is Enough'
Machinists Benny Adair, Howard ”Bubba” Dawes and Wendell Gregory joined the May 17 rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to declare “Enough is Enough” over Bush administration policies that have hurt air and rail workers since 2001.
Adair is council vice president, Dawes is council COPE director and Gregory is IAMAW District 19 secretary-treasurer. Eight other Kentucky Machinists also attended the rally, Adair said. The rally, which attracted thousands of union members and supporters and some Democratic presidential candidates, was led by the IAMAW. Adair is directing business representative of IAMAW District Lodge 154 and is president of the state council of Machinists.
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Wiggins gave thanks for many helpers at May Council meeting
The May council meeting was short, like the agenda.
Jeff Wiggins, Council president, told the delegates that he sent thank you letters to the state AFL-CIO for donating the old state Workers Memorial to the Council (See first story above), to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant for a $1,000 donation toward the monument, and to Laborers Local 181 and to NES Crane Rentals for helping move and reset the monument.
“I also want to thank everybody who helped with the Workers Memorial Day program and the W.C. Young dinner,” said Wiggins. He cited members of AIM-UNITE Chapter 22, Council Vice President Benny Adair, Recording Secretary Hardy Williams, Sgt.-at-Arms Berry Craig, Trustees Bonnie Edwards and George Wiggins, COPE Director Howard “Bubba” Dawes, delegate Larry Johnson, Martha Wiggins – the president's mother and George's wife – and “everybody else who helped make all of this a success.” Wiggins also thanked an absent council member. “Louis Hicks,” he said. “He was a big help in getting the monument, too.” Hicks, Council COPE director, died last year. In other business, the Council voted to send a letter of support for the Paducah Firefighters to Mayor Bill Paxton and the city commission.
There will be no July newsletter. Berry Craig will be on vacation.
