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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 6, Number 8, September, 2005
Right-to-work bill awaits doom in state House
House Speaker Jody Richards says any right-to-work bill proposed in the 2006 General Assembly will be “dead on arrival” in his chamber.
“Look at the right to work states,” said the Bowling Green Democrat. “They are the poorest states in the union. Why would we want to imitate them?”
Richards spoke to the August Area Council meeting. The veteran lawmaker was in western Kentucky for the annual Fancy Farm political picnic.
“The Democratic House has repeatedly stopped legislation that would hurt labor and hurt working families and will continue to do so for as long as I am speaker, for as long as I continue to swing that gavel,” said Richards, the longest serving House speaker in state history.
He called organized labor “the bedrock and support of the Democratic Party. We will never forget that. I pledge to you that we will continue to help our labor brothers and sisters.”
On other topics, Richards promised his support for the state merit system. Attorney Gen. Greg Stumbo is investigating whether officials of Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration broke the law by filling merit system jobs based on politics, not qualifications. Nine current or former members of the Republican administration have been indicted in the probe.
Fletcher denies any illegality. “But we are not going to whitewash the thing,” Richards said. “We will never let the merit system fail. If anything, it will be stronger.”
State Rep. Fred Nesler, D-Mayfield, who also addressed the delegates, said he backs the merit system, too. “That system has worked very well, and I also think we have a chance to enhance it.”
Nesler said the governor “is a decent fellow.” But the lawmaker said “the people he has around him are some of the most arrogant individuals that I have ever seen in my life. You can't reason with them.”
Nesler also thanked the delegates for their support. “There are fewer of us who carry organized labor's flag,” he said, referring to the Republican-run State Senate. “But we in the House believe in the issues labor believes in.”
He too said he opposes a right to work law. “I made that commitment to you a long time ago. The way I was yesterday is the way I will be tomorrow.”
Nesler said he and other veteran Democratic House members believe “the Republicans will come at us hard” in next year's election. “The truth of the matter is that we are the body standing in the way of them and complete control.”
He said Democratic incumbents are already gearing up for the fall 2006 campaign. “It's earlier than I ever have started before,” Nesler said. ”I'm hearing the same thing from my colleagues. We need your help. We need your ideas. We need your money.”
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Graves : ‘My credentials with labor are solid'
Justice Bill Graves came courting labor support for his reelection to the state Supreme Court.
“I want to stay employed,” Graves, from Paducah , joked with delegates at the August council meeting. “I have 20 years experience as lawyer, 10 years as a trial judge and 10 years as a Supreme Court justice.”
Graves said he comes “from a blue collar family” and “represented people hurt on the job” when he practiced law. “My credentials with labor are solid,” he said.
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Earle: ‘A house that's not united...cannot stand'
Steve Earle said he talked with Gary Best at the national AFL-CIO convention.
“I said, ‘ Gary , with the hostile environment that's out there right now, this is not the time for the house of labor to be splitting.'”
Best is president of Louisville-based UFCW Local 227. The UFCW, the SEIU and the Teamsters pulled out of the AFL-CIO.
Earle, a UMWA international representative from Madisonville , represented the area council at the convention. “A house that's not united is a house that cannot stand,” Earle told delegates at the August council meeting.
The UFCW's departure will cost the Kentucky State AFL-CIO several members, according to Larry Jaggers, state federation secretary-treasurer. He also attended the August council meeting.
The SEIU has a number of members in Kentucky , too. The Teamsters were not affiliated with the Kentucky AFL-CIO.
“I hope the house of labor can come back together,” Earle said. He added that he “has some good friends” in Local 227.
Earle also said the convention approved funding to assist state and local union organizations hurt by the pullout of the three unions and to help AFL-CIO unions fend off membership raids by the SEIU, UFCW and the Teamsters.
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Union locals are free to go to L-M conference
The Kentucky State AFL-CIO won't officially participate in the Kentucky Labor-Management Conference.
But individual unions are free to go, said Larry Jaggers, state federation secretary-treasurer.
Some unions plan to attend the Sept. 13-15 gathering at Kentucky Dam Village Resort Park in Gilbertsville. Others will stay home.
“We're not stopping anybody from going or staying away,” Jaggers told delegates at the August council meeting. “We don't feel like it is right for us to take a position telling affiliates what to do when we have affiliates on both sides of the fence.”
Unions are planning to hold a rally at the Machinists' District Lodge hall in Calvert City during the conference.
On other topics, Jaggers said historical memorabilia is needed for the Oct. 16-18 state AFL-CIO convention in Owensboro . “We'd like to borrow your old charters – things like that – for display in a history room,” he said.
Delegates elected Lewis Hicks to represent the council at the convention. Hicks, a member of Pace Local 5-680, is on the council board of trustees and is the council COPE representative. He received the 2005 W.C.Young Award, the highest honor the council bestows.
Jaggers agreed that labor must help ensure the Democrats keep control of the state House of Representatives. He said the state AFL-CIO does endorse some Republicans with pro-union voting records. “But don't ever get it in your head that the Republican Party is going to support labor," Jaggers warned.
Jeff Wiggins, council president, agreed. “We can count on about 10 percent of the Republicans in the House to help us,” he said. “But if the Republicans get control, that 10 percent will disappear. They'll either start voting the party line or the Republicans will run somebody against them in the primary.”
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Labor Day Committee needs more volunteers
Volunteers are needed to help mark off spaces for vendors Friday morning of Labor Day weekend at Carson Park . “We'd like to have people here by 9 a.m.,” said Frances Willey, financial secretary-treasurer of the Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee Inc., the volunteer group that puts on the annual holiday program, the highlight of which is a parade on Labor Day.
"The vendors like to come and set up early," she said. Anyone wishing to volunteer can contact Willey at (270) 554-1627
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Three breakaway unions and Custer's Last Stand
By BERRY CRAIG, AFT-Kentucky/KEA-NEA
The SEIU, the Teamsters and the UFCW left the AFL-CIO "at a time when our need for solidarity has never been greater," Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said.
"Division and dissention play into the hands of our opponents, during a time when we can ill afford to be divided," warned Bill Londrigan, president of our Kentucky State AFL-CIO.
The departed unions disagree. An official of one union said their exit from the AFL-CIO represents "a vision and strategy for the future." The past suggests otherwise.
I teach history. History teaches that disunity in the face of powerful enemies usually courts disaster.
I'm thinking of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and of the ancient Gauls.
Custer wasn't much on solidarity at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Greatly outnumbered, he divided his cavalry regiment into smaller parts and attacked a large, unified force of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors.
They all but wiped out Custer's command. He was among the slain; hence, the famous fight went down in history as "Custer's Last Stand."
Today, organized labor is far outnumbered by enemies who are strong and united. They hope the departure of the SEIU, the Teamsters and the UFCW, will be "labor's last stand." They have their fingers crossed that other unions will leave the federation.
"...Workers are more effective when they are united, since capital has always been better organized and possesses much greater economic and political resources than the working classes," added Londrigan. He's right.
So is Gerard about labor's need for solidarity never being greater, or at least not in the last 80 years. Washington is run by the most anti-union president and Congress since the 1920s.
Kentucky has a Republican governor and a Republican state Senate. The GOP would love to make us a right-to-work state. "The only thing standing between us and a right-to-work law is a Democratic house," said Jeff Wiggins, council president and a Steelworker.
Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to sucker union members and split unions with hot-button social issues, like abortion, guns and gay marriage. Because labor won't hop on the Bush bandwagon, the GOP all but accuses unions of being unpatriotic.
Given the clout of our foes, we don't need to give them a helping hand, however unintentionally. Thus the SEIU, the Teamsters and the UFCW also remind me of the Gauls, who lived in tribes centuries ago, mostly in what is now France . The Gauls were fierce fighters, but all too often against one another.
One day, Julius Caesar showed up with a Roman army. Here was a common enemy who aimed to conquer all of Gaul .
Had they stood together, the Gauls probably could have beaten the invader. But the Gauls failed to unite. In the end, Caesar grabbed Gaul . "Divide and conquer," was his motto.
I am sure that the SEIU, the Teamsters and UFCW don't mean to be helping labor's enemies. But anti-labor Republicans doubtless expect to make hay off the split between the three unions and the AFL-CIO. "Divide and conquer" is the GOP strategy for hustling the working class.
"United We Stand, Divided We Fall," is the Kentucky state motto. It is emblazoned on the state flag on display with Old Glory in our council hall.
Wiggins, a member of Steelworkers Local 9447-5, said the council tries to practice what the Kentucky flag preaches. "We sometimes disagree -- even fuss and feud -- at council meetings," he explained. "We vote, compromise if we have to, then accept the result and walk out the door united as union brothers and sisters."
It's a shame the SEIU, Teamster and UFCW brass couldn't be more like Wiggins and less like Custer and the Gauls.
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Got news? Email it to Berry Craig at bcraig8960@charter.net or Jeff Wiggins at JLWiggins2@Juno.com.