By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Larry Sanderson opened Friday’s Danny Ross Labor luncheon in Paducah by offering a toast to the veteran Kentucky labor leader for whom the annual pre-Fancy Farm feed is named.
“To Danny Ross, a great man, a great friend and a great labor leader," Sanderson proposed, signaling the crowd at Walker Hall to hoist clear plastic cups of iced tea, lemonade and water. "May his soul rest in peace."
Ross, from Louisville, died last December in a Falls City hospital. A retired member of IUE/CWA Local 83761, he was 71.
Sanderson, a well-known state labor leader, recalled that in 1991, Ross suggested the luncheon as a kickoff for the state's premier political picnic in nearby Fancy Farm, held the first Satuday in August.
The luncheon is one of four picnic preliminaries. The McCracken County Democratic Party hosts the Alben Barkley Dinner on Thursday night. Next comes the labor luncheon, sponsored by the West Kentucky Building and Construction Trades Council.
The Marshall County Democratic Party's Mike Miller Bean Dinner is Friday night at Kentucky Dam Village State Park. On Saturday morning, the Graves County Democratic Party puts on a breakfast at Mayfield High School.
In 1991, Ross was labor liaison for Patton's successful campaign for lieutenant governor. He stayed in the post when Patton was elected governor. He was labor liason for Gov. Steve Beshear and for Greg Stumbo, too.
Beshear was in the crowd supporting his offspring, outgoing Attorney Gen. Andy Beshear who wants Gov. Matt Bevin’s job.
Steve Henry, Patton’s lieutenant governor, came with his wife, Heather French Henry, the Democrats' secretary of state hopeful. Seated nearby was Stumbo, who is seeking his old job.
The Kentucky State AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Henry, Stumbo and the rest of the Democratic slate: Andy Beshear for governor, Jacqueline Coleman, lieutenant governor; Michael Bowman, treasurer; Sheri Donahue, auditor, and Robert Haley Conway, commissioner of agriculture.
All of them took turns at the mike.
Kyle Henderson, president of the Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council, emceed the program. Last January, the building trades unanimously agreed to rename the lucheon in Ross’s honor.
“We need another good labor governor, and we’re going to get another good labor governor,” Henderson said when he introducing Beshear.
That triggered the first tsunami of cheering and applause. Several more followed.
“Are you ready?” Beshear challenged as he bounded onto the stage. “Are you ready to fight for working families? Are you ready to fight for teachers?”
The crowd chorused “Yes!”
Beshear praised Ross. “It’s always been an honor to address this group, but this being named after Danny Ross is important to me.
“He was an amazing man and an amazing friend, and I miss him dearly. I know he would have wanted desperately to beat this governor.”
Beshear said Kentuckians “want a governor that listens more than he talks and solves more problems than he creates, who spends no time bullying and name-calling and spends all his time addressing the challenges that face us here in Kentucky.”
He said Bevin “is willing to say anything at any time and attack anyone who disagrees with him.”
Beshear repeated a familiar campaign theme: the governor’s race “is not about Democrats versus Republicans. It is not about Washington, DC. It is not about left-versus-right. It is about right-versus-wrong.”
He chided Bevin for pushing a "right to work law" and legislation to repeal the prevailing wage. He denounced the Labor Cabinet as anti-worker.
He also accused Bevin of favoring private, for profit charter schools over public schools, and for trying to take away health care for thousands of Kentuckians.
Coleman denounced Bevin for shutting union members out of committee rooms during hearings on RTW and PW and for barring the Capitol to teachers and other state employees protesting cuts in their pensions.
She promised that the state will have a new labor secretary and a new state board of education the first week the Beshear adminstration takes office.
Stumbo chided the GOP for claiming it's the party of “Christian values.” He said you won’t find “Republican” or “Democrat” in the Bible. “If Jesus were here today, no one could tell you whether he’d be a Republican or a Democrat.”
He paused for effect, smiled and declared, “I know this--He was a teacher and a carpenter and the teachers and carpenters I know are good Democrats.”
The crowd laughed and clapped approvingly.
Henry said she understood the value of organized labor, adding that one of her uncles was a union pipefitter and another one a member of the United Auto Workers. She said union members today “are standing on the shoulders of great men and women who went before.”
Donohue, Bowman and Conway rounded out the speaker’s lineup.
Conway, from Georgetown, said his father worked in an IBEW plant in Lexington before he left to open a business. He died suddenly and unexpectedly a year later, leaving a widow with cancer and three kids to raise on little money.
“Somehow, the word got back to the IBEW in Lexington, and those individuals got in a car, and they drove to Georgetown.In the funeral home, they gave my mother a check that kept us from losing our house, that bought our groceries and allowed us to have a halfway decent normal life.”
Conway said he had only about $5,000 in his campaign treasury. “There’s going to be a gentleman at the back door with a gray box.” he announced, surprising the crowd. He urged people to give what they could—but not to him.
“The money will go to Harlan County to buy school supplies for the children of those miners.”
He meant the group of protesting miners blocking railroad tracks to underscore their demand for back pay from their bankrupt employer, Blackjewel mining company.
Stumbo and Democrat Amy McGrath, who wants to take on Sen. Mitch McConnell next year, were with the miners Thursday. At the labor luncheon, he repeated his charge that state Labor Cabinet officers be fired for failing to post a state-mandated payroll bond to protect miners in such circumstances. The last paychecks the miners got from the company were worthless.
Also at the luncheon, Bobby Barnett, Joe Littleton and Gerald Watkins received the W.C. Young Award, the highest honor the Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council bestows. Barnett, who is deceased was vice president of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO. Littleton was longtime council recording secretary. Watkins is a city commissioner and former Democratic state representative.