It's now or never

By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

 For all sad words of tongue and pen,

The saddest are these, "It might have been."

A lot of people are familiar with that lament even if they don’t know its source.

It comes from an 1856 poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. The passage can apply to just about anything. But it’s particularly apt for Tuesday's state House races.

Let’s say, for whatever reason, you don’t bother to vote. Maybe you think your vote doesn't matter. You're confident the union-endorsed candidate in your House district has the election in the bag. Or you might figure the candidate hasn’t got a chance.

Then on Tuesday night, you see in the news that the union-backed candidate lost by the thinnest of margins.

“It might have been.”

I know you’re hearing it from candidates and their supporters: “This is the most important election in our lifetime.”

You’ve heard it before. We all have--so many times that it’s easy to dismiss it as the usual election hype.

“If we lose the House, we’ll never get it back,” a Democratic lawmaker just told me.

The Republicans took the state Senate 16 years ago and hold a 27-11 edge. Even the most optimistic Democrats agree that flipping the upper chamber is well-nigh mission impossible for the foreseeable future.  

The legislator ticked off bills that will sail through the Senate and House in the opening days—if not the first day--of the 2017 General Assembly. You know what they are:

-- “Right to work”

-- Prevailing wage repeal

-- Gutting the workers’ compensation program

“They won’t stop there,” he added.

Indeed, they won’t. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin will gleefully sign all the union-busting bills that end up on his desk.

Think all won’t necessarily be lost if the Republicans take the House? Think we can just hold another big rally at the capitol and stop the union-busting legislation?

It’s always worked--like when GOP Gov. Ernie Fletcher pushed RTW, right?

Thousands of union members and union supporters converged on Frankfort. It was an impressive show of solidarity, that old union byword.

But what derailed RTW was a Democratic-majority House and especially the guy who held the gavel in the Labor and Industry committee—J.R. Gray, one of organized labor’s best friends ever in Frankfort.

Rick Nelson chairs the committee now. He’s in our corner, too. But a Republican will run the committee if the GOP takes the House.  

Still think a big rally might yet do the trick?

Unions rallied against union-busting governors and legislatures in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan.

Are they RTW states?

Yep.

Unions rallied against RTW in West Virginia. Is it a RTW state?

Yep.

Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan went RTW under GOP governors and legislatures. West Virginia's Republican legislature passed a RTW law over Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's veto. 

Anyway, the TV talking heads say Pennsylvania is Hillary Clinton’s “firewall” to ensure her victory over Donald Trump.

That 53-47 Democratic House is our firewall. If we lose it, the anti-union laws sure to pass the legislature in the next session couldn't be overturned unless the Democrats retook both the Senate and the House, an outcome that is extremely unlikely.

“If the prospect of a Republican House doesn’t motivate union members to go to the polls on Tuesday, I don’t know what would,” the lawmaker said.

Neither do I.

It really is now or never this time—or never in a very, very long time. Brothers and sisters, let’s not have to lament, “it might have been.”