Cecil Roberts: 'If you’ve got a fight somewhere, old Bill's gonna be there.'
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the sixth in a series of stories on the just concluded 35th biennial Kentucky State AFL-CIO convention.
By BERRY CRAIG
Alliance for Retired Americans
“If you’ve got a fight somewhere, old Bill's gonna be there," said UMWA President Cecil Roberts.
“He’s been to jail for us. He’s spoken for us. He’s marched with us."
“Old Bill” is Bill Londrigan, who has stepped down as president of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, a post he’d held since 1999. His successor is Dustin Reinstedler, president of the Kentucky State Building and Construction Trades Council and vice chairman of Bricklayers Local 4 Kentucky/Indiana. Reinstedler was elected at the state AFL-CIO's recent biennial convention in Lexington.
Roberts, a featured speaker at Monday’s session of the two-day gathering, has fired up crowds at several conventions.
But this time, he also praised Londrigan, whom he said he’d known for more than 20 years. He presented him with a boxed, shiny brass clock on behalf of the UMWA.
In his speech, which was as roof-raising as ever, Roberts told the story about the time he and Londrigan got arrested and were hauled off to jail together in a police car.
UMWA members, retirees and their supporters had gathered at Charleston, West Virginia’s capital, on April 1, 2013, to protest the Patriot Coal Corporation’s bankruptcy restructuring plan. Protestors demand that Patriot make good on its pension and benefit promises to retired miners and their dependents.
The rally, organized by the UMWA, began with the crowd meeting at the Charleston Civic Center. After Roberts and others spoke, the throng marched to Patriot’s nearby office.
“It was one of the most amazing shows of solidarity that I’ve seen," recalled Roberts, who estimated the crowd size at 10,000. “The state fed president in West Virginia was arrested. The state fed president in Kentucky was arrested, and the state fed president in Virginia." So were Roberts and the whole UMWA board.
Roberts and Londrigan were handcuffed and put in the back seat of a squad car for the trip to the lockup. Roberts thought he recognized the officer driving the car and asked him his name.
“Petty, sir,” he replied.
“Are you any kin to Steve Petty?” Roberts further enquired.
“Yes sir, that’s my dad.”
Roberts told the officer that he had coached football with Steve Petty, a UMWA retiree. Officer Petty confessed that he knew of the connection, and according to Roberts, “felt really bad about taking his dad’s assistant football coach to jail.”
Roberts presented Londrigan the clock “on behalf of 100,000 coal miners who have their pensions...[and] health care now guaranteed by the United States government” thanks longtime UMWA allies like his longtime friend, “Old Bill.”