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Our enemies: apathy and complacency

Berry Craig
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a series of stories about the Working People's Day of Action Rally in Louisville. Click here to see photos of the rally.

By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

“This is no time for apathy or complacency,” Bill Londrigan quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his remarks at the Working People’s Day of Action rally in Louisville. “This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

Added Londrigan, Kentucky State AFL-CIO president: “Dr. King was right when he said that many years ago, but, of course, we are right back where we were morally.”

Complacency and apathy are the enemies of organized labor, Londrigan warned. “They certainly are the reason we have our union-hating governor.”

Only 16 percent of eligible voters put Republican Matt Bevin in office in 2015. The GOP flipped the state House of Representatives in 2016. Last year, the legislature passed a “right to work” law and repealed the prevailing wage; Bevin eagerly signed both bills.

“Apathy—we see a lot of that out there across the board,” Londrigan said. “We also have complacency, where we have workers, union members, whatever, that are not getting the message, who think they have it good who have forgotten where they came from, who have forgotten about the roots of the labor movement, who have forgotten about the principles of the labor movement, about working together, about unity, about solidarity, and that’s where we are, brothers and sisters.”

He said the gathering at the UAW 862 Hall on Fern Valley Road represented resistance to apathy and complacency. “We are here to take back our country, take back the power of our government for the workers, the children, elderly, sick, disabled.”

Londrigan admonished the crowd of union members and their families, friends and supporters to overcome apathy and complacency “by pledging to be an agent of change in your community….By fighting and condemning apathy whenever and wherever we see it, we will energize others and help them fight off and resist complacency.”

He urged the crowd to send emails and write letters to lawmakers and “engage with others,” adding, “We will rally in protest….We will go to Frankfort….When people come out and see their brothers and sisters, when they see that feeling of solidarity, they will know they are not alone.”

Londrigan again quoted King: “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

He said that workers’ rights are civil rights, human rights and women’s rights. “Unions bring everybody together. That’s such an important concept and that’s what we need to stick and keep in our hearts.”

King, Londrigan remined the crowd, also praised the union movement as “the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.”

Declared Londrigan, “The principal way to dispel misery and despair is through the union movement in this country. Hope and progress is what we get when we have a strong labor movement.”

Londrigan said the right-wing has been targeting organized labor since Ronald Reagan became president in 1980. “We’ve been under attack for going on 40 years. The war on workers is real.”

He challenged the crowd to stay connected and informed through social media and email. “There is no real excuse for you not to know what’s going on out there and not to know the truth.”

Londrigan cited websites from the state AFL-CIO and the Kentucky Center for Economic Progress and the Kentucky Public Pension Coalition Facebook page. He paused and asked the crowd to take out cell phones and text to 235246 to find out what’s going on in Frankfort.

He maintained that “never in history has the onslaught and the attack on all workers been at such a high level. I’ve been doing this for 19 years, folks, and this legislative session and the one before have been the most contentious and the most difficult to deal with because we have lost our backstop.

“The only thing we can do is continue to push back. They took the big shots last year, aimed specifically at unions because they don’t like what we do. They don’t like the fact that we stand for workers. They don’t like that we don’t support their corporate agenda.”  

While in 2017, it was RTW and PW repeal, this year, Bevin and the Republican majority are trying to gut public pensions and the workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance programs, Londrigan said.

He also said that Republicans complain that Kentucky’s jobless benefits should be lowered because they are higher than those in surrounding states. In testifying before a House committee, he argued the reverse: “Why shouldn’t we be proud of the fact that we are supporting our members, our families, their friends, their constituents to a higher level? What’s wrong with us being better than Tennessee or Indiana?”  

He said that traditionally, Kentucky had been “a state that stood up for workers’ rights and union rights and our opponents knew that and they started after us with a vengeance—rolling back workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, overtime protections—you name it, they’re on the chopping block.”

Londrigan thanked union members and their families who flooded the capital last year and have returned this year. “Some of them think that when we had ‘right to work’ last year,’ we’d just go away—that the union movement would be no more."

He said unions proved their foes wrong. “We’ve had union members and their families in Frankfort almost every day during this session. We’ve been there watching them, meeting with them—pushing them back, giving them information and lobbying our tails off for the right things, and it’s made a huge difference.”

In 2017, the GOP steamrollered RTW and PW repeal through the legislature. This time, their pension, workers compensation and unemployment insurance proposals have yet to pass.

Londrigan said the tide seems to be turning nationwide against the Republicans' extremist anti-worker and anti-union agenda. He pointed to several legislative seats in special elections that Democrats have flipped, including Kentucky’s Bullitt County House District 49, which labor-endorsed Linda Belcher won.

“The people see where their bread is buttered, and it is not the Republican side of the ledger.”

He concluded, “We’re holding rallies like this all across the country. This isn’t just something we cooked up here. This is a national effort to wake other workers up, try to wake other people up, about how important it is to for them to get engaged and involved and go out and vote.”