By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
I wonder if Attorney Gen. Daniel Cameron, the Republican nominee for governor, will try to sucker unions with the same sort of phony apology he trotted out for teachers when he unveiled his education plan.
His fake-out fell flat.
If Cameron has a plan for unions, you can bet it would be as anti-labor as his education plan was anti-public education. The AG is all in for private school vouchers, though somehow he failed to mention that in his education plan rollout.
Cameron is an avowed "right to work" fan. He doesn't like the prevailing wage, meaningful workers comp and unemployment insurance programs or strong worker safety and health laws. No matter what unions support, he opposes.
When he touts "free enterprise," he means union free.
I doubt Cameron will change his tune, say he sorry for badmouthing us and promise to stop trying to wipe us out. But if he tries to con us, let's remind him of a 2021 letter in which he joined 13 other GOP AG's--all of them union-despisers, too--in begging the U.S. Senate to turn thumbs down on the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, PRO Act for short. (Cameron still opposes the PRO Act.)
The letter was addressed to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Richard Burr (R-NC), the ranking member on Murray's committee.
Schumer and Murray support the PRO Act. So do President Joe Biden and nearly every other Democratic senator. The GOP caucus is united against the bill, which the then-Democratic-majority House passed in 2021 and sent to the Senate.
Cameron was so proud to put his John Hancock on the letter that he had his PR flack put out an official press release under a truth-twisting headline: "Attorney General Cameron Joins 14-State Letter Urging Senate Leadership to Reject Bill Requiring Workers to Join Unions."
The Pro Act wouldn't make anybody join a union. Click here to see the release which, typically, is chock full of dissembling and deception--like the letter.
Cameron and company were particularly vexed that the PRO Act would eliminate state right to work laws, thus depriving business and industry bigwigs f one of the oldest and most effective union-busting tools around. State RTW laws permit workers in a unionized workplace to enjoy union-won wages and benefits and receive union representation without joining the union or paying the union a service fee to represent them. The idea is to weaken unions by encouraging workers not join unions.
"We need the PRO Act to ensure good jobs for all working people," says the AFL-CIO. "Historically, unions have turned bad jobs into good jobs in one industry after another. All working people need and deserve the collective power of a union to help achieve decent pay, secure benefits, flexible schedules, fair treatment, and basic respect and dignity at work."
The AFL-CIO explains, the legislation "would make it easier for workers who want to form or join a union to do so, and the latest economic research shows that higher union density raises wages, reduces inequality, increases productivity and stimulates economic growth."
Your Kentucky State AFL-CIO made history last January when it unanimously endorsed Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for a second term. Never before had the state’s largest labor organization backed a candidate so soon in an election cycle. (In 2019, the state AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Beshear right after he won the May primary.)
The state AFL-CIO also endorsed the whole Democratic ticket, but not because of the party label. We're backing the Democrats because by word and deed they stand with organized labor. Every Republican candidate from Cameron on down is anti-union.
in his stump speech at the Danny Ross West Kentucky Building and Construction Trades Council Luncheon in Paducah the day before Fancy Farm, Beshear said he was “proud to be the pro-union governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky”
“I am proud,” he added, “because our unions helped build this great nation, helped build the strongest middle class in the history of planet earth, ensured safety on a job-site, and right now are clearly building a future economy so bright and generating opportunities for all of our kids and grandkids. Thank you.”
Beshear has visited union halls from Paducah to Pikeville. Cameron gives union halls a wide berth. He prefers the company of chamber of commerce folks and others who also think we union folks are the devil's disciples.
Anyway, compare the governor's remarks with the letter Cameron signed. The letter is more proof-as it were needed-that the choice on Nov. 7 is easy if you pack a union card: The Democrats on the ballot are with us, the Republicans aren't.