By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
“We’ve got a lot to celebrate in this state today and many good days to come, I believe," Sue Foster said on inauguration day. She's president of Louisville AFSCME Local 4011.
Union-endorsed Gov. Andy Beshear is already three-for-three and batting .1000 on some big campaign promises.
He's appointed a union member, Larry Roberts, as his labor secretary, thus ending Gov. Matt Bevin's anti-labor labor cabinet.
He's issued an executive order ousting Bevin's anti-public education state Board of Education for a new pro-public education panel. (Wayne Lewis, Bevin's anti-public education education secretary, has resigned.)
Beshear inked another executive order returning the vote to more than 140,000 convicted felons who have finished their sentences. (This order mostly restores a 2015 order from his dad, Gov. Steve Beshear, which Bevin lost no time in axing.)
Organized labor played a big role in electing Beshear over Bevin, one of the most anti-union governors in Bluegrass State. He teamed up with GOP House and Senate supermajorities to make Kentucky a "right to work' state.
The Republican union-busting agenda included prevailing wage repeal and legislation to gut the state workers compensation, unemployment insurance and OSH programs.
On the campaign trail, Beshear also promised to push for RTW repeal and PW restoration. He's for strong workers comp, UI and OSH programs.
But getting rid of RTW, bringing back PW and safeguarding programs that benefit workers--and not just those of us who pack union cards--will be mission impossible until we get the governor more help in the legislature.
"I'm happy that we have a labor-friendly governor, but until we change the House and Senate, the atmosphere in there will still be grim," warned Jeff Wiggins, state AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer.