Right to Work for Less Opposition Rally Summary

Wow! What a showing Labor made today in Frankfort! I'm going to apologize for the length of this post in advance but so much happened. The slogan of the day was “Stand Up – Fight Back”, attending were anywhere from 5000 (lowest guess I heard) to 10,000 (highest).

We arrived to a large crowd chanting. Shortly after a couple of people began playing pro-labor songs. We clapped and sang with them. A large number of people of very well dressed men went up to the stage. They came to announce that they killed Right to Work for Less and Repeal of the Prevailing Wage. The vote was 11-2 even! Need some help as to whom voted for it.

There was a very nice, well-spoken man from Atlanta who reminded me of Dr. Luther King who gave a speech. He spoke of King's efforts against Right to Work for Less. He thanked us for labor's involvement in Civil Rights and talked about the reciprocal effort. I didn't catch his name and need some help. Another speaker I was impressed with was the teacher. I need help with her name too.

The Democratic Committee Chair gave a rousing speech as to why. Legislators lined up and acted as if we were their bosses. That's awesome, because we are! What really got my attention was Charlie Borders (R) speech (Howard Cornett was on that stage at some point)! He was so proud of what he has done for Working Americans! He also said that he was speaking on behalf of the Republican Caucus. Otherwise it was a very much a Democratic party rally. I found it a bit unfortunate. The GOP has a lot of ground to make up with labor as a whole. This is mostly due to their leadership – which must change. Speaking of which, heard a rumor that Fletcher was not even going to run in their primary and that Pence was.

The rally just about ended with a speech from Mary Jo Kemper of the Kentucky Council of Churches (from memory). It was about raising minimum wage. We really should be against such a thing as it discourages union membership. It is a double-edged sword as we are the ones who get people that would raise minimum wage in the legislatures. We should be, of course, for higher wages. But, and this is very important, government is not the vehicle, unions are.

In the end the crowd was encouraged to take the offense and pursue pro-worker legislation. I encourage everyone to focus on improving organizing rules and regain some of the ground we have lost.

(This post will be later edited to add links – hopefully we can at least get some audio content on the web!)