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Kentucky Activists Launch Campaign for New Governor |
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Bernard Pollack, AFL-CIO field coordinator, sends us this report on the launch of a campaign to elect a working family-friendly governor in Kentucky.
Eighty-five activists from at least 25 unions and several central labor councils attended the Labor 2007 Kentucky kickoff meeting in Louisville yesterday to launch a member-to-member program in support of gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear.
The current governor of Kentucky, Ernie Fletcher, has tried to push right-to-work-for-less legislation, opposes collective bargaining for public employees and consistently is wrong on prevailing wages.
Bashear helped kick off the meeting, along with Kentucky AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan, by telling labor leaders:
The single best way you help me win is to do what you do best—talk with your members on the phone, at the worksite, using local union mail and at the door.
Participants watched a video of Kentucky labor leaders discussing the importance of our member-to-member program in our collective effort to defeat Fletcher.
Londrigan was joined on the video by UFCW Local 227 President Gary Best, UAW CAP Director Connie Thurman, United Steelworkers (USW) District 8 Director Billy Thompson, and State Building Trades Director Larry Roberts.
We unveiled a detailed calendar plan for the campaign’s next four months, emphasizing some of the program’s core strengths—local union mail, union newsletter articles, worksite leaflets, phones banks and labor walks. Additionally, union leaders heard about the plan that Working America is implementing to recruit tens of thousands of new members in Louisville.
By the close of the meeting, leader after leader stood up and committed to work the Labor 2007 program with all the labor unions in Kentucky. Nearly every union represented in the room also signed a pledge declaring their intention to move all elements of the 10-point program.
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Paid for by AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund.
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That’s what Kentucky needs.
That is not what Kentucky need, I am from Kentucky and did not know what ( Right To Work) ment untill i moved to Alabama which is a right to work state Meaning you can be Termination FOR NO JUST CAUSE at Employee WILL
With out an Empolyment Contract or a Collective bargaining agreement , Employers are free to discharge employees AT WILL
FOR ANY REASON OR EVEN NO REASON ,YOUR EMPLOYEE COULD BE HAVEING A BAD DAY AND TAKE IT OUT ON YOU BY FIREING YOU. AND YOU HAVE TO WAIT SIX WEEKS IN ORDER TO GET YOUR UNEMPLOYMENT THAT WHAT RIGHT TO WORK MEANS YOU NEED TO READ YOUR BUSINESS LAW BEFOR EXCEPTING ANY AND EVERY THING THIS IS THE TRUTH, YOU NEED TO READ
PAUL HOSSE BEFOR SAYING WHAT KENTUCKY NEED
BY WANNETTA ROBINSON
http://www.hillbillyreport.com/blog/2007/08/striking-ovaco-.html
Louisville, Kentucky – Workers on strike at Ohio Valley Aluminum Company (OVACO) in Shelbyville, Ky., have received unprecedented encouragement and support from the Louisville community and beyond in the month-and-a-half labor dispute to gain their first union contract at the aluminum plant.
Since their strike began June 1, a broad array of civic, labor and community-based organizations have rallied to the cause of the OVACO workers and their quest for a voice in conditions of employment.
Teamsters, Machinists, Auto Workers, Teachers, Electronics and Communications Workers, Ironworkers, Operating Engineers, State, County and Municipal Employees, Food and Commercial Workers, Nurses and many other union members from the AFL-CIO labor federation actively participated in a mass rally July 11 at the Louisville corporate headquarters of OVACO’s holding company, Interlock Industries. Louisville’s Jobs with Justice Coalition – including religious groups like Interfaith Workers Justice and other community organizations – took part in that rally and vow to be increasingly involved in future campaign plans for the OVACO strike.
USW Local 1693 President Kevin Baird said 1,600 members of the local union who work at other area companies are donating time, money and other forms of support to the strikers. Aside from OVACO, Local 1693 represents workers at Alcoa, Hussey Cooper, American Synthetic Rubber, Tyson Foods, Bruce Fox, Clayton & Lambert, Millennium Forge, Revere Packaging,. Diego Distilleries (Makers Mark), Tube Ice, Turbo Refrigeration, Allied Drum, Henry Vogt, Dispenser Optical, Conco, Sypris Technologies, Cohart Refractory, General Shale, Noveils Rolling, Louisville Ladder and Hillerich and Bradsby (Louisville Slugger.)
In addition to the Steelworkers Strike & Defense Fund, thousands of dollars have been donated by working people to help sustain striking families through the hard times. USW District 8 Director Billy Thompson issued an appeal to Steelworkers members throughout Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland urging donations for OVACO workers. He said, “This dispute is not just about the folks at OVACO. It’s about defending every man and woman in America who chooses to have a union.”
Food donations have been overwhelming. Baird said, “We’ve had such an outpouring of food donations that picketers haven’t had to go shopping for three weeks.”
Since management stripped away workers’ meager health insurance when the strike began, union supporter David W. Suetholz M.D. and his office in Taylor Mill, Ky., have provided medical care to strikers and their families free of charge.
And the first line of defense for many strikers is their own family. Katie Wentworth, wife of 23-year-old OVACO striker Alvin Wentworth, can be found on the picket line, at demonstrations or at the union hall as frequently as company employees. And when walking the picket line, she can sometimes be found with her aunt and uncle, Debbie and Roger Whitehouse, also active strike supporters. Family and community support has been a key element in keeping the strikers strong, united and energized.
Striker Alvin Wentworth said, “It sure helps to have your family behind you when you’re in a fight like this.”
USW Local 1693 represents more than 90 employees at the Ohio Valley Aluminum Co.’s billet-making plant, which is owned by Louisville’s wealthy Mackin family. The 850,000 member United Steelworkers vows to mount an international support campaign to back up OVACO workers seeking their right to have a union and collective bargaining rights.