Despite Kentucky’s ‘right to work’ laws, labor unions thrive in Louisville, and beyond | Opinion
Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan wasn’t surprised when members of the United Auto Workers at Ford’s sprawling Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville joined their union’s strike against the Big Three automakers.
“The most profitable plant in the Ford system is the Kentucky Truck Plant,” he said. “I think that’s sending a very strong message to Ford that the workers are fed up and want to get a fair contract.”
Members of UAW Local 862 walked off the job on Wednesday. UAW President Shawn Fain and Vice President Chuck Browning called for the strike “after Ford refused to make further movement in bargaining,” according to an online UAW news story.
“We have been crystal clear, and we have waited long enough, but Ford has not gotten the message,” the story quoted Fain. “It’s time for a fair contract at Ford and the rest of the Big Three. If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it.”
The strike at the Ford plant was unannounced. “The surprise move marks a new phase in the UAW’s Stand Up Strike,”said the UAW story. “Previous expansions of the strike occurred at a deadline set in advance by the union. The move comes one day before the four-week mark since contracts expired at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.”
The Louisville plant, built on a 500-acre site, opened in 1969. It produces the Ford F-250 and F-550 Super Duty trucks, Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators.
“The workers in the plant are tired of the way they’ve been treated over the years,” Londrigan said. “They gave all the concessions to the company to make sure it remained solvent and it’s time for the company to pony up.”
Ford’s headquarters is in Dearborn, Mich. Earlier this year, the Democratic-majority state legislature—supported by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat — repealed Michigan’s “right to work” law, which a GOP-majority legislature passed in 2012.
Londrigan doubts that Kentucky’s status as a “right to work” state will have any effect on the strike in Louisville. “When you look at the response from across the country, including several ‘right to work’ states, there has been universal support for the strike from the UAW and all of organized labor as well as from the general public.”
Pushed by conservative Republicans and allied conservative business and industry groups, “right to work” laws are on the books in 26 states. They are designed to weaken unions and discourage workers from joining unions. Under a “right to work” law, an employee at a unionized workplace can receive union-won wages and benefits without joining the union or paying the union a service fee to represent them.
For years, Kentucky’s Democratic-majority House and Democratic governors thwarted Republican efforts to pass a “right to work” law. But in 2015 pro-”right-to-work” Republican Matt Bevin was elected governor. In 2016, the GOP flipped the House, giving the Republicans control of both chambers of the legislature.
Encouraged by the anti-union Bevin, the Senate and House majorities quickly approved a “right-to-work” law in 2017. “The impact of ‘right to work’ on union density in Kentucky has been nonexistent,” Londrigan said. “The support for unions among our members and the general public has not wavered. So in a general sense, the effort to drive a stake in the heart of organized labor has been a complete failure.”
An historian, author and freelance journalist from Arlington, Ky., Berry Craig, is a member of the American Federation of Teachers and serves on the state AFL-CIO Executive Board.
