Bernard Pollack, AFL-CIO field coordinator, sends us this report on the campaign to elect a working family-friendly governor in Kentucky.

More than 400 union activists turned out this weekend for the Labor 2007 kickoff in Louisville, Ky., to knock on doors and talk with thousands of Kentucky union members across Jefferson County.

Top labor leaders kicked off the day by rallying union members for the hard work ahead. Speaking to a sea of activists in yellow “Labor 2007” shirts and standing in front of a yellow banner reading “It’s Our Time,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said the union movement is mobilized for the final six weeks of the 2007 campaign. Says Trumka:

This is the beginning of the end of the reign of the rich and powerful in Kentucky, because it is the beginning of the end for Ernie Fletcher.

Kentucky labor activists are looking to replace Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who has canceled collective bargaining rights for state employees, privatized Kentucky’s Medicaid program and pushed to repeal the prevailing wage law and implement anti-union “right to work” for less legislation. Gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear asserted his opposition to so-called “right to work” legislation and affirmed his support of safeguards for the prevailing wage, employee bargaining, the need for affordable health care and good jobs. He promised that the next secretary of labor would be a card-carrying union member. In short, says Beshear:  

It is time that working families have representation again in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Those who couldn’t take part in the walk participated in the UAW’s Labor 2007 phone bank all morning and afternoon.

They represented a complete cross-section of the Kentucky labor movement, coming from AFGE, AFSCME, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Carpenters, Communications Workers of America (CWA), Electrical Workers, Fire Fighters, Iron Workers, IUE-CWA, Kentucky Building and Construction Trades Council, Kentucky Education Association, Laborers, Letter Carriers, Machinists, Mine Workers, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Nurses Professional Organizing, Operating Engineers, Painters and Allied Trades, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, SEIU, Sheet Metal Workers, UAW, United Food and Commercial Workers, United Steelworkers and Working America.

In addition to Beshear and Trumka, labor activists heard from UAW Vice President Terry Thurman, UAW Local 862 President Rocky Comito, UAW Region 3 Director Maurice “Mo” Davison, UAW member and Ford worker Vickie Collins and Kentucky State AFL-CIO President William Londrigan before they set off on their walks. 

Local NBC and ABC affiliates covered the events, as did the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader.  

The walks, phone banks and leaflets will continue in the coming week. This Saturday, the walks will expand from Louisville to Lexington, Paducah, Owensboro and Pikeville. 

To get involved in labor actions, you may use the new AFL-CIO Events page.

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Paid for by AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund.

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