Kentucky Voters Set to Unseat Anti-Worker Governor

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney (above) speaks at a rally in Kentucky, where working families are set to elect Steve Beshear governor.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka greets union members at phone banks in Kentucky.

AFL-CIO political writer Shant Mesrobian has been working in Kentucky with union members to help get out the vote for the state’s critical gubernatorial elections. Steve Beshear (D) is challenging Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R), who has canceled bargaining rights for state employees, privatized Kentucky’s Medicaid program and taken other anti-worker stands. 

It’s Election Day, and we’re heading to the ballot box with a 20-point lead for working families’ candidate Steve Beshear. In large part because of union members’ massive mobilization efforts, Beshear is set to oust anti-worker, anti-union Gov. Ernie Fletcher whose policies have failed the state and working families.

Across Kentucky today, 106 phone lines are buzzing with union members making tens of thousands of get-out-the-vote (GOTV) phone calls in Louisville, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Paducah, Pikeville, Lexington, Ashland and Cincinnati until 5:30 p.m. today.
 
More than two dozen unions are participating in today’s Election Day phone bank (in the video at left, two of the phone bankers, Terry Lynch with the Asbestos Workers and Merrill J. O’Donnell with the Cement Masons union, describe why they volunteer to get out the vote).
 
Union members, retirees, householders and Working America members make up approximately 350,000 voters in Kentucky. One in every four votes cast today will be from a union household. 

Last night, more than 400 union members, retirees, families and members of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America turned out  for the final get-out-the-vote “It’s Our Time—Walk to Victory” rally at the UAW Local 862 Hall in Louisville. U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth joined the rally, along with union leaders from Washington, D.C.

Following the rally, Steve Beshear made the UAW Hall and the Labor 2007 event his last campaign stop of the election. Greeting a room packed with union members and his families, Beshear said:

I’ve never in my career seen a political ground game like the one the labor movement did for me this year. I’ll never forget the walking, talking, mail and leafleting you did for me.

Unions participating included: AFGE, AFSCME, AFT, ATU, Carpenters and Millwrights, CWA, GLCLC, IAM, IBEW, IRON, IUOE, IUPAT, JCTA, KEA, KNA, OPEIU, OPCM, LIUNA, NPO, SEIU, UA, UAN, UAW, UFCW, USW, and Working America.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and  AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka traveled from Washington, D.C., for the rally. They joined AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department Secretary-Treasurer Sean McGarvey, USW Secretary-Treasurer James English, AFGE Secretary-Treasurer Jeffrey David Cox, AFGE Vice President Arnold Scott, UAW Region 3 Department Director Larry Moffatt, Kentucky AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan, USW District 8 Director Billy Thompson and Kentucky State Building Trades Director Larry Roberts.

It’s our time!

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

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