March 30, 2018 at 11:51pm
Members of the KFTC Executive Committee adopted the following statement to express KFTC's solidarity with public employees, including teachers, and all workers who are under attack by Gov. Matt Bevin and leaders in the Kentucky General Assembly.
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY
March 30, 2018 at 11:29pm
KFTC's Executive Committee urges Kentuckians to create an inclusive movement by choosing not to play into harmful and divisive language.
Kentuckians For The Commonwealth works for an open, healthy democracy and a high quality of life for all people. We stand with teachers and public workers in the fight for a fair pension.
We understand the hurt and anger caused by Governor Bevin when he called Kentucky’s teachers and other public workers “selfish and short-sighted” and said they displayed a “thug mentality” when speaking out. He should apologize.
The word “thug” has a complicated history. It was used to disparage unions of working people throughout labor’s history. Over time, it’s meaning shifted and today, the word “thug” has racial undertones. It’s a word that causes hurt and pain for Black Kentuckians and other people of color.
That language seeks to divide us, and repeating it has unintended consequences.
March 28, 2018 at 10:25pm
I am a retired UMWA coal miner from western Kentucky and a KFTC member.
I worked underground for many years and very proud of that work. When I put on my bank clothes to go underground I did so secure in the knowledge that the benefits I was earning would be there for my wife and myself to survive during our retirement years. But now, thousands of retirees like me all across the coalfields will lose their pensions due to the 2008 financial crisis and coal company bankruptcies.
March 21, 2018
Lexington Herald Leader
Congress should renew a tax on coal companies that supports medical treatment for miners disabled by black lung and expires at the end of this year. A vicious resurgence of the incurable disease gives lawmakers little choice.
March 19, 2018 at 12:28pm
Eric Simpson (Rowan Co.) on the chapter's civic engagement on medical marijuana bill HB 166
March 1, 2018 at 10:45am
On February 24 members in Scott County hosted a town hall for residents to ask the questions of their state legislators they were concerned about. The chapter invited all state legislators who represent part of Scott County to attend, with State Representatives Mark Hart and Phillip Pratt attending.
February 15, 2018
Lexington Herald Leader
Corporations have spent four decades taking traditional pensions away from most American workers. Now they and their allies want to do the same to school teachers and other public employees.
February 14, 2018
The Courier-Journal
Gov. Matt Bevin's complex plan to reshape the state Medicaid program actually will cost Kentucky more to provide health coverage to people affected by the Medicaid changes than if the state did nothing.
February 8, 2018
Lexington Herald Leader
In his State of the Commonwealth address a year ago today, Gov. Matt Bevin boldly proclaimed that he and the new Republican-controlled General Assembly would turn some “sacred cows” into “hamburger.”
January 17, 2018 at 01:07pm
For the 16th straight year, the Georgetown-Scott County NAACP Unit celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with a march and program commemorating the legacy and message of the late civil rights leader. In the current environment that we are in, with growing income inequality, elected leaders playing to racial and religious differences, and a struggle to define what it means to be American, it was an important day to stand together.
