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 7, August 2006

Speaker Richards hosting pre-Fancy Farm lunch in Paducah

House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, is hosting an “old time labor lunch” starting at 11:30 a.m. Aug. 4 at the Paducah American Legion hall.

The meal will feature political and labor speakers. “The Speaker is inviting union members and our friends to what he's calling an ‘old time labor lunch,'” said Jeff Wiggins, Area Council president. “There will be food, fellowship and lots of good discussion of issues that are important to us.”

Wiggins also said the program “will be a nice warm up for the Fancy Farm picnic, which will be the next day. We need a good turnout for the Speaker's lunch and for the picnic. We've got to make sure our candidates -- most importantly [State Rep.] J.R. Gray [D-Benton] -- are elected,” Wiggins said.

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Labor-Management Conference will be held at Kentucky Dam

Benny Adair still doesn't know why he was removed from the Labor-Management Conference board of directors.

“A week before the meeting where the new board voted to move the conference to Covington , I got a letter saying I would be ‘sorely missed,'” he said. “I had no idea I was being replaced. I guess they knew I would throw a fit over this.”

Even so, Adair, a Machinist and Area Council vice president, is glad the conference will again be at Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park .

“After the board voted, we had a meeting of union and management people from Western Kentucky at our district lodge hall in Calvert City ,” Adair said. “We made plans to have our own labor-management conference.”

At the same time, several labor and management leaders protested to the board.

A week after approving the switch to Northern Kentucky , the board reversed itself. “They voted unanimously to keep the conference in Western Kentucky ,” Adair said.

But the board also agreed to poll labor and management officials to see if there is interest in moving the annual conference to another site. “I don't think there is,” Adair said.

Gov. Julian Carroll started the three-day Labor-Management Conferences at the state park in 1977. The idea was to promote better labor-management relations by providing a relaxed setting where union and company officials could get together socially.

  Conferences are held annually the week after Labor Day. The 2006 conference would have been in October, provided meeting space could be found.

Adair also doesn't know why the board voted to move the conference. “But that hotel in Covington would hold only 500 people and we had more than 600 people at the Labor-Management Conference last year.”

The vote was 7-4 in favor of Covington . Protests came swiftly from board members who opposed the move and from others.

“They made a poor decision,” the Lexington Herald-Leader quoted board member Richard Meyer, state secretary-treasurer of the Kentucky Professional Firefighters. “I think it was irresponsible.”

Board member Don Mitchell, an official with the Indiana-Kentucky

Regional Council of Carpenters, said the vote “sends the wrong message to labor” notably after Fletcher tried to get the legislature to pass a right-to-work law and repeal the state prevailing wage law, according to the Herald-Leader .

Mitchell, who is from Paducah , also told the Lexington newspaper, “It's a bad time to do it, whatever the motives were. We're taking it from a publicly- owned facility to a privately-owned one.”

Adair agreed with Mitchell. “Why would you go from a state facility to a privately owned-facility unless somebody maybe has his fingers in the pie,” he said.

Commerce Cabinet Secretary George Ward said the state park system would have lost money had the conference been moved, the Lexington paper reported. The Herald-Leader added that the Labor Management Conference is one of the largest single events in the whole park system every year.

Adair said Mitchell told him “he had no idea this [the vote to move the conference] was coming up. Adair added that Mike Donta, a Steelworker and board labor co-chair, “expected to see me at the meeting. He didn't know I had been removed.”

Donta also opposed the move to Covington , according to Adair.

Adair said about 18 people from labor and management gathered at the Machinists hall. “Gary Seay [business manager of IBEW Local 816] was there and Larry Sanderson [business manager of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 184] and Ron Spann [Steelworkers] and others from the old Western Kentucky Labor-Management Board,” Adair said.

“We decided to wait and see if the board reversed itself. But we sent the message up there that we were going to have a labor-management conference in Western Kentucky with or without them.”

Meanwhile, Adair said Mike Mazzone, an official at the NewPage paper mill in Wickliffe , helped round up management support for keeping the conference at Kentucky Dam Village .

“We [Machinists] also called all of the management people we had contracts with and asked them to support a labor-management conference in Western Kentucky ,” Adair said.

On June 16, the Labor-Management Conference Board voted 12-0 to stick with Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park . “Since our meeting…members of the board have received comments from labor and management leaders from across the state regarding moving the conference,” Donta said in a state government press release. “The vote reflects some of the comments we have received.”

The 2006 Labor-Management Conference will be Sept. 12-14.

Six labor and six management representatives sit on the board. Secretaries of the Environmental and Public Protection cabinets appoint board members.

Union members cast all four votes against Covington . One labor member was absent. “A union member from Northern Kentucky also voted to move to Covington ,” Adair said.

Tim Mosher, management co-chair, was for Covington , according to the Herald-Leader. “It's just an opportunity to go to other places,” he told the newspaper.

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Wiggins: Rasche ‘needs…to mend some fences' with labor

Jeff Wiggins, council president, had some blunt words for Desiree Owen, a Democratic Party worker, when she called on behalf of State Rep. Frank Rasche of Paducah .

“I appreciate your coming,” Wiggins said at the July council meeting. “But you need to go back and tell Frank he needs to come here himself.”

Rasche is opposed for reelection by Republican Bruce Brockenborough. “He has been to two council meetings and was at the rally in support of the prevailing wage at the Pipefitters hall last February,” Wiggins said.

“Brockenborough told us he is against right-to-work and for the prevailing wage. He has written me two letters reiterating his position.”

Rasche spoke at the February rally. He has said he opposes a right-to-work law and doesn't want to abolish the prevailing wage.

“But he [Rasche] needs to come to us, not just send a representative,” Wiggins said. “I don't know if he has ever been in this council hall.”

Wiggins said Rasche has not been named among consistently pro-union lawmakers in Frankfort . “Although this time, he did help AFSCME get some of their bills passed,” Wiggins added.

Owen is also working for State Rep. J.R. Gray, D-Benton. “It goes without saying that J.R. is labor's best friend in Frankfort ,” Wiggins said.

He told Owen that labor would back Gray “100 percent.” Owen promised to relay Wiggins' message to her candidates, Wiggins said.

Gray, chairman of the House Labor and Industry Committee, was one of the first lawmakers who earned a state AFL-CIO endorsement this year.

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Council adds its support for single-payer healthcare proposal

Labor support continues to build for House Resolution 676, a measure introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., that would implement a single-payer healthcare system in the United States .

Plumbers local unions in Memphis and Northwood , Ohio , have endorsed the bill. “We're glad to see these two locals on board,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “We endorsed HR 676 at the June council meeting. The Kentucky State AFL-CIO also endorsed the legislation.”

HR 676 now has 72 congressional co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
It would start a single-payer health care system in the U.S. by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to include everybody.

HR 676 would cover every person in the U.S. for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic and long term care.  HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments.  HR 676 would save billions annually by eliminating high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs. HR 676 has been endorsed by 159 union organizations, including 33 central labor councils, three state AFL-CIO federations -- Pennsylvania and Connecticut 's besides Kentucky's -- and four area labor federations.

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History repeats itself in Chicago : Catholic hospitals fight unions

It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Over 8,000 workers at Chicago-area Resurrection Health Corp. want to join AFSCME.

The Catholic-run hospital system is waging a bitter anti-union campaign, the national AFL-CIO reports. “The workers say during their drive to win a voice at work, Resurrection has fired several employees for backing the union,” the AFL-CIO says.

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Got news? Email it to Berry Craig at bcraig8960@charter.net or Jeff Wiggins at JLWiggins2@Juno.com.

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