'It’s a life-changing election.'
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Bill Londrigan understood he was preaching to the choir.
“You all know why we’re here,” the Kentucky State AFL-CIO president told the 1,500 union members, teachers and others at Paducah’s “Remember in November” rally Saturday afternoon.
“We’re here…to take back Kentucky for the working men and women that make this state work, that build this state, that teach our children, that make everything happen and we’ve got a short period of time, folks, to get it together.”
The choir seemed to appreciate the sermon. Everybody clapped and cheered.
Londrigan was among a quartet of featured speakers at the gathering of the faithful just 10 days from the election. The Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council, the West Kentucky Building and Construction Trade Council and the Kentucky Pipe Trades sponsored the rally.
Londrigan shared the podium with House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins (D-Sandy Hook), Jacqueline Coleman, Attorney Gen. Andy Beshear’s running mate in next May’s Democratic gubernatorial primary; Kyle Henderson, the area council president; and Sara Stephenson, a Kentucky Education Association member and teacher at Heath Elementary School near Paducah.
Londrigan praised a group of regional Democratic office-seekers who worked the crowd: State House hopefuls Desiree Owen, Charlotte Goddard, Martha Emmons, Abigail Barnes, Linda Story Edwards and Jeff Taylor, state Senate candidate Julie Tennyson and Paul Walker, who is running for Congress. All are state AFL-CIO endorsed.
While Londrigan spoke, Adkins waited his turn in the crowd, most of which was sitting in folding chairs rowed up beneath big banners from local unions
“Rocky, we are going to take back the Kentucky House and we are going to stop the onslaught," Londrigan promised. "We’re going to turn it back around on them.”
He meant the 63-37 GOP House majority. (The Senate is 21-11 Republican.)
Londrigan vowed, “we’re going to stop them from beating up on teachers and taking their pensions. We’re going to stop them from taking wages out of people’s paychecks. We’re going to stop them from turning back the clock on the teachers, the hardworking men and women of Kentucky.”
But he warned that the GOP won’t be stopped unless “you all here…work during the next week to call your neighbors, talk to your friends, talk your co-workers and get out here and spread the word of how important this election is.”
He conceded that voters often hear “this is the most important election of your lifetime.” But he challenged, “Well, brothers and sisters for the organized labor movement and working families in Kentucky, yes, this is the most important election.
“We have to get out and show the other side that we are not afraid, that we are not going to take it, that their big money and the Koch brothers and [GOP Gov.] Matt Bevin are not going to take over Kentucky.
“We’re all about working together, raising wages, getting pensions, job security--that’s what we are all about and unless we pull together in the next few days, the consequences could be devastating.”
He said the Republicans have handed workaday Kentuckians the issues. “They have laid them before us. Our members, average working people, cannot vote for people that repeal prevailing wage, that pass ‘right to work,’ that are trying to strip teachers of their pensions.
“They are trying to limit overtime protections. They are trying to limit unemployment protections--those are the issues that are out there right now.”
Londrigan also called the Republicans hypocrites for claiming the Democrats are the party of higher taxes.
“They raised your taxes,” said Londrigan, citing the GOP tax bill that passed in the last session of the legislature.
The measure applied new sales taxes to a range of heretofore exempt services. “They caused you to pay six percent…to go to the gym, to the golf course, to charitable events and to get your automobile fixed.”
He said that while the bill hiked taxes on working families,” it “ cut taxes on rich people--"and that is not right.”
Londrigan ended with a charge to the crowd: “We have to stand up together and turn this around, and the only way we are going to do it is at the ballot box on November 6.
“So, I ask you, I beg you, to get out in the next week to make it work here in west Kentucky. We’ll send a message across the commonwealth. We’ll send Matt Bevin packing like we did [Republican Gov.] Ernie Fletcher and we’ll take this great state back for the working men and women.”
Howard “Bubba” Dawes remembered when union members turned out in droves to defeat Fletcher and elect Democrat Steve Beshear—Andy’s father—in 2007. Beshear was reelected in 2011, again with strong union support.
"People need to just get out and vote," said Dawes, area council vice president. "If people go to the polls, we win."
He's expecting a good turnout. "I think the Republican Party has made people even madder."
Rally emcee Larry Sanderson, a retired UA international representative, agreed. “It’ simple. Get out and vote. Get your family out to vote. Get your neighbors out to vote to get these guys—Bevin and his bandits—out of office.”
Bill Finn, state director of the Kentucky State Building and Construction Trades Council, recalled the big rallies in Frankfort against the Bevin-GOP idea of pension “reform.” He was there.
“People need to remember how fed up they were back in the spring,” he said. “But now’s the time to make the change.”
Chad Rennison of Paducah IBEW Local 816 remembered low turnout elections, including the one in 2015 when Bevin was elected. Fewer than 31 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.
“That’s pitiful,” he said. “You’ve got to have some skin in the game. You can talk all you want and throw your hands up in the air but until you cast a ballot it doesn’t mean anything.”
Jim "Roy" Rodgers of Paducah USW Local 550 didn’t mince words. “...If we don’t get out and vote, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves….This is not just a midterm election, it’s a life-changing election.”
The rally was a family affair for many who came. The Crawfords—father James and his grown children, Matt and Alecia, helped swell the crowd.
The patriarch is a retired member of IAM Local 1969 in Calvert City. Matt works out of Ironworkers Local 782 in Paducah, where his sister is employed in the county attorney’s office.
“I’m here to support the unions and Martha Emmons,” Alicia Crawford said. “The union put food on our table, kept us clothed and warm. Unions go to bat for each other.”