By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
Kentucky State AFL-CIO-endorsed Gov. Andy Beshear showed up for the 23rd annual Greater Louisville United Labor Day Picnic.
His GOP challenger, anti-union Attorney Gen. Daniel Cameron, went to what seems to have been a less than labor friendly Labor Day program.
Cameron, GOP state Sen. Robby Mills, his running mate; GOP AG candidate Russell Coleman, Republican Congressman Brett Guthrie and some state legislators, evidently all Republicans, showed up for the Grayson County Labor Day Parade in Leitchfield, the county seat.
The official parade tee shirt proclaimed "I'D VOTE FOR LAETTNER BEFORE BESHEAR," a reference to Duke basketball star Christian Laettner whose buzzer-beating shot eliminated Kentucky from the 1992 NCAA basketball tournament. The tee shirt plus the presence of Cameron and the other union-despising GOP luminaries suggested the procession was more of a Republican rally than a program honoring working folks.
Anyway, Cameron tipped his hat to the holiday by posting on X (formerly Twitter): "Happy Labor Day, Kentucky! Today, we honor the hardworking men and women who drive our Commonwealth forward."
The post had 259 "likes" as of Wednesday morning. But negative comments far outnumbered positive ones, more proof, one might argue, that Cameron isn't winning many union hearts and minds.
The first two thumbs-down replies were Beshear-endorsing graphics from the USW and UMWA.
Here's a sampling of the rest:
"But yet you don’t support labor. Ok."
"How about thanking a union? One that isn’t the cops"
"Dear, Google the origins of Labor Day. It's not Republican-approved."
"When I read this, I threw up a little."
"You deplore labor unions. Shhhhhh"
"Of course you're honoring just the white workers, right?"
"You and the GQP are always trying to break up unions, so you can stop the lying. Kentucky is a ‘ right to work’ state which just means you hate unions. So stop with the lies."
Anyway, unions point out that Cameron is pro-"right to work" and anti-prevailing wage. (Beshear is anti-RTW and pro-PW.) When Cameron's running mate, state Sen. Robby Mills, was in the House in 2017, he voted for RTW and for repealing PW. The GOP supermajority legislature lost no time in passing both bills and GOP Gov. Matt Bevin eagerly signed them into law.