The national AFL-CIO says it has its eyes on several Kentucky state House races, as the group tries to counter GOP efforts to flip control of the chamber.
Republicans are hoping to win a majority of state House seats for the first time in nearly a century.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Schuler is in Kentucky this week, rallying labor members ahead of the November 4th general election.
She says her group is especially concerned about one of the central tenets of the Kentucky Republican legislative agenda.
“Primarily because of the folks who have been touting Right to Work as a goal of theirs to pass, as the first order of business if the House changes hands,” Schuler told WKU Public Radio Tuesday.
Kentucky Republicans have promised to pass what they call “right to work” legislationif they gain control of the state House. Such a bill would give workers the ability to decide whether or not to join a union.
Labor leaders say “right to work” weakens worker rights and wages. They’ve blasted the Kentucky effort and similar laws in other states. However, a Bluegrass Poll released in August showed 55 percent of Kentuckians favored passing “right to work” legislation.
That same amount also favored raising the minimum wage, something organized labor groups strongly support.
Schuler’s visits to Lawrenceburg, Louisville, and Frankfort are also to assist get-out-the-vote efforts for Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. Schuler’s appearances come on the heels of a Bluegrass Poll released Monday that showed Grimes leading incumbent Republican Senator Mitch McConnell 46-44, which was within the poll’s margin of error.
While admitting the overall number of labor members in the U.S. has dropped drastically over the decades, Schuler insists the AFL-CIO can still have an impact on elections in places like Kentucky.
“The labor movement actually represents 6-and-a-half million women in the country, and is the largest ‘women’s organization’ in the nation. So we’re using that to our advantage in Kentucky, to make sure we’re communicating specifically with women," she said.
The Kentucky chapter of the AFL-CIOlaunched a mail campaign against Sen. McConnell in September that the group said was part of a “massive political mobilization” that would also include knocking on doors, worksite fliers, and phone banking.
