By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Gov. Matt Bevin was his spiteful self on election night.
Giddy over the GOP’s romp in the state House races, he couldn’t resist gloating over Speaker Greg Stumbo’s defeat. "I say, 'Good riddance.' I mean he will not be missed one bit. Kentucky will be better for his absence," the governor crowed.
Donald Trump, possibly the crudest and most classless candidate for president ever, called Hillary Clinton "Crooked Hillary" and worse on the campaign trail. But even he forced himself to say nice things about her in his victory speech. She returned the favor in her concession speech.
Bevin was characteristically petty and vindictive. He poured it on. He called Stumbo’s loss “the best news that came out of any individual district, for sure ... 38 years I believe Greg has been here, a career politician. He hasn't given a rip about the people in his district for a long time. He hasn't even lived there for better than a decade.”
Like most on the political fringes, left-wing and right-, Bevin sizzles with self-righteousness. A tea party-tilting, John Birch Society-schmoozing reactionary, he sees politics as holy war.
Democrats like Stumbo aren’t the loyal opposition to this governor. They are hellish infidels who deserved no quarter and must be smitten.
Stumbo and his Democratic House were all that stood between us and a "right to work law," repeal of the prevailing wage, a workers' comp wipeout, and a gutting of the state OSHA program.
If there's anything Bevin despises more than Democrats, it’s unions. He plans to make the 2017 General Assembly our Waterloo. He's now got the troops and firepower to do it.
Come January, the Republicans will lay down a barrage of union-busting bills, starting with RTW and ending with who knows what. Bevin will happily sign them all.
I suspect that more than a few Kentuckians who voted Republican in the House races for whatever reason figured Bevin and the GOP would stick it to the unions, not to them.
But wages are lower across the board in RTW states. The prevailing wage benefits non-union construction workers, too. Workers comp and OSHA are a boon to all workers.
So if you’re a working stiff who voted Republican Tuesday, get ready. Sooner or later, salaries will sink. It will be harder to get the medical and financial help you deserve if you get hurt at work. Your workplace will be less safe, too.
If you work a minimum wage job, hogs will fly before this governor and this legislature will boost the hourly rate.
Meanwhile, think Mississippi. Not coincidentally, the poorest states are RTW states. Bevin and the Republicans will soon enter Kentucky in the race to the bottom.
My guess it won't be long until a lot citizens who voted Republican will rue Nov. 8. Sorry, no do-overs. All sales final. No exchanges and no refunds until November, 2018.
Oh, but there is buyer's remorse. The only way to avoid that is not buy the product.