The Western Kentucky Worker

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

Prepared by Berry Craig, AFT Local 6010 and KEA-NEA

Volume 10, Number 7, July, 2010

 

  

Phyllis Rouse is named ‘Manager of the Year’

 

Phyllis Rouse didn’t expect to be named 2010 “Manager of the Year for Elderly Property” by the Kentucky Housing Corp.-U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

 

“I was in shock – total shock – that I won it,” said Rouse, manager of the Jackson House Apartments and W.B. Sanders Retirement Center in Paducah. “But I consider it a very, very big honor.”

 

Rouse works for the Western Kentucky Senior Citizens Union Labor Housing Corp., the non-profit organization that owns the Jackson-Sanders facilities, and the organization's boards of directors. Beacon Properties of Louisville manages the apartment buildings, both built by union labor.

 

She received the Manager of the Year award at the annual Kentucky Housing Corp.-HUD Housing Management Conference in Louisville in May. She was honored in June at a Paducah dinner hosted by Beacon Properties.

 

Rouse has worked at the Jackson House-Sanders Center for 31 years. She has been manager for four years.

 

“We are extremely proud of Phyllis and the 11 staff members who work there,” said Benny Adair, Jackson-Sanders board president and Area Council vice president. "We are proud of her leadership and proud of the workmanship of the staff.

 

“Phyllis won this award out of 600 housing authorities. It is a great award for her, for Beacon and for the staff.”

 

At the banquet, the state AFL-CIO and the Area Council gave Rouse a plaque of appreciation "for the good job she is doing,” Adair said. 

 

Beacon officials also gave the employees bonuses as tokens of the firm's appreciation.

 

Rouse started at the Jackson House-Sanders Center as a social worker. She was a steward for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227, which represents hourly employees at the two facilities, for 21 years.

 

“Phyllis’ hard work and the hard work of the staff make our job easier,” said Adair.

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Poison Populism: Rand Paul’s Tea Party brew

       By BILL LONDRIGAN

President, Kentucky State AFL-CIO

 

Recent pronouncements by   factions of the ephemeral Tea Party movement reveal little about where it stands on the rights of American workers to form and join unions of their choosing without fear of reprisal, coercion and firing.

 

The Tea Party has been silent about the rights of American workers when it comes to fair wages, benefits and pensions through collective bargaining.

 

Their “Contract From America” does not contain a single word about workers’ rights, union rights, unfair trade, retirement security or workplace safety.

 

They have been silent about the rights of workers to form and join unions of their choosing because these rights belie their true purpose of promoting unregulated corporate power.

 

While some observers have attempted to portray the Tea Party as a populist uprising against the prevailing powers, traditional populist movements support workers’ right to organize. Questions about where the Tea Party stands on workers’ right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits have now been put to rest – and they are far from any notion of populism!

 

Tea Party darling, U.S. Senate Candidate Rand Paul, in his response to questions about workers’ right to organize confirms that Tea Baggers oppose these rights (see below).  Just as candidate Paul does not fully support the Civil Rights Act, so too does he stand squarely with corporate-backed, anti-union forces against the interests of America’s working men and women.

 

His stalwart support of BP Oil, Massey Energy and the “private property rights of corporations” should be enough for any sensible worker to reject Paul and his fellow Tea Baggers.

 

Paul’s attempt at populism disgraces the legacy of one of Kentucky’s greatest populists, Governor William Goebel who was assassinated 110 years ago.  Goebel was murdered because of his crusade to reign in the power of the Goldman Sachs, BP’s and Massey Energy’s of the period: rail, coal and banking barons.  His legislative successes regulating the power of corporations earned him their scorn but also the admiration of Kentucky’s workers.

 

This historical digression illustrates the difference between a real Kentucky populist and the charlatan masquerading as a populist now running for U.S. Senate.  The record must be clear that populism in Kentucky has a long and powerful influence on the people, culture and politics of the Commonwealth.

 

On the grounds of the Old Capitol in Frankfort where he was assassinated, sits a monument to Kentucky’s “martyred” Governor William Goebel.  Inscribed on the monument are references to regulatory legislation passed by Goebel while a state senator, as well as laudatory quotes from notable public figures of the time.

 

Two inscriptions stand out as testaments to Goebel’s kinship and undying support for the rights of workers’ preeminence over capital, including his dying words:

 

“Tell my friends to be brave and fearless and loyal to the great common people.”

 

The other inscription is a testament to Goebel’s innate understanding of the struggle between capital and labor:

 

“The question is: Are the corporations the masters or servants of the people?”

 

After more than a century Goebel’s question remains as relevant today as it was when robber barons controlled vast wealth and workers and their families

were dependent on them for employment and survival.  

 

Rand Paul’s inscriptions would have him telling his friends to be brave, fearless and loyal to the great corporations and his answer to Goebel’s prescient entreaty would have been that corporations are our masters.

 

Paul’s populist façade falls flat in light of his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act which would remove some of the barriers to organizing at the workplace. Responding to a questionnaire from a recently created anti-union Republican front group, candidate Paul responded to questions about the Employee Free Choice Act and its various elements that he opposes all of it.

 

Candidate Paul is so vehement in his opposition to the right to organize and bargain collectively that he answered every single question in opposition to workers’ rights.  Plus, he added two handwritten zingers just to make sure there was no mistaking how he felt about workers’ right to organize and unions in general.

 

In addition to opposing all aspects of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, Paul wrote that he had the support of the National Right-to-Work Committee, which seeks to undermine unions by chocking off resources and undermining solidarity at the workplace.  The National Right-to-Work PAC contributed $2500 to Paul’s U.S. Senate primary campaign – a sure indicator of Paul’s anti-union philosophy and support for the corporate sponsored, anti-union agenda.

 

Paul didn’t stop there and added the following comment:

 

“Will oppose all power grabs aimed at paying off Big Labor.” 

 

Paul’s reference to “Big Labor” places him squarely in the camp of traditional anti-union forces who take pains to paint organized labor and its leaders as bureaucratic, self-serving, and overly powerful. 

 

We can expect millions more in campaign contributions from groups like the National Right-to-Work Committee and corporate backed Republican front groups established by Mitch McConnell’s minions to elect their Tea Party darling, Rand Paul. 

 

The message should be clear: if you are not a wealthy shareholder or a corporate “person,” you have inferior rights – if you are a worker, you are on your own and you better watch out because “accidents happen.” 

 

Populism my eye – what Rand Paul and his fellow Tea Baggers are about is the law of the jungle – no government to mediate between the power of wealth and corporate influence and the rest of us.  Workers of Kentucky beware – Rand Paul is not on your side – Paul does not believe you have the unfettered right to freely choose a union at your workplace – Paul does not believe you

have the same rights as corporations.

  

Corporations: Masters or servants of the people?  You better decide because Rand Paul already has!   

 

 

 Union members ask: ‘Why is the media so anti-union?’

By BERRY CRAIG

“Why is the media so anti-union?”

 

This old reporter-turned-history-teacher could retire if he had a dime for every time he’s heard a union brother or sister ask that question. 

 

Usually they mean Fox News and local newspapers and TV and radio stations.

 

Everybody knows Fox News is the Republican Party’s propaganda ministry. More than a few small town media owners are Fox fans. But a lot of their anti-union bias is rooted in old-fashioned Rotary Club-chamber of commerce-style boosterism, which Sinclair Lewis, left, satirized in Babbitt, his famous 1922 novel.

 

Most local newspaper publishers and TV and radio station owners would fit right in with George Babbitt and the other members of the "Good Citizens' League" branch in "Zenith," Babbitt's Midwestern "hometown."

 

The Good Citizens battled unions, claiming "the...American way of settling labor-troubles was for workmen to trust and love their employers," Lewis wrote. "All of them agreed that the working-classes must be kept in their place; and all of them perceived that American Democracy did not imply any equality of wealth, but did demand a wholesome sameness of thought, dress, painting, morals, and vocabulary."

 

Generally, the smaller a paper or TV or radio station is, the greater its bias against unions. Their anti-unionism is sometimes as plain as their front doors, which are often plastered with decals or stickers proudly proclaiming chamber membership. The fact that the chamber is openly pro-business and anti-union apparently doesn’t trouble local media owners about conflicts of interest.

 

Like the chamber, almost all small-town newspaper publishers and TV and radio station owners believe that what’s best for businesses – including their media businesses, of course – is best for the community. So local business leaders -- and fellow Rotarians -- get a lot of ink and on-camera time. They are depicted as “solid citizens” who are “pillars” in their communities.

 

On the other hand, union leaders almost never get such positive press. The president of the local chamber of commerce is in the paper or on TV or the radio all the time. The president of a local union almost never is, except when there is a strike.

 

Reporters commonly call strikes “labor disputes,” not “labor-management” disputes. “Labor disputes” implies, on purpose on not, that unions are solely to blame for work stoppages.

 

Strike stories seldom focus on why workers go on strike. They usually concentrate on how strikes inconvenience the public.

 

Therefore, newspaper readers, TV viewers and radio listeners are led to believe that the public is the innocent victim in “labor disputes.” Striking workers, no matter how aggrieved, come off as greedy malcontents who just cause trouble, not only for their employers, but for everybody.

 

Part of the bias is rooted in a lack of understanding on the part of reporters. Not that many small town newshounds even have a basic idea of how unions and collective bargaining work.

 

Almost no small-town papers or TV or radio stations are union. Few reporters have ever been in any kind of union.

 

Of course, any company's PR department is always glad to “help” the reporter with skillfully spun news releases.

 

Like PR staffers, most reporters are middle-class, college grads. Hence, many reporters naturally sympathize with management.

 

Never mind that small town reporters don't make big bucks. Many of them see themselves as "professionals," like company flaks, whose station in life is above that of working stiffs.

 

Even reporters who consider themselves "liberal" often stereotype union members as dimwitted, Archie Bunker-style bigots.

 

Anyway, good labor reporting is specialized reporting. Time was, big city daily newspapers recognized that fact and had full-time labor reporters.

 

Few do any more. (But large or small, almost all papers have business pages or sections.)

 

“Labor reporters knew how unions functioned and why they existed,” said Bill Londrigan, president of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO. “They tended to be more balanced in their labor reporting.”

 

Londrigan added that it’s no accident that labor reporters are all but gone. “It was coincident with the corporatization and concentration of media ownership.”   

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