This article is reprinted from the Labor Tribune and dated July 2, 2018.
LABORERS LOCAL 42 BUSINESS MANAGER/SECRETARY-TREASURER BRANDON FLINN
As union members crowded into Laborers Local 42 hall in St. Louis June 24 for a rally and action to defeat Proposition A (RTW), Local 42 Business Manager/Secretary Treasurer Brandon Flinn laid out the stakes.
“We’ve got approximately 45 days left of hard work and dedication in which we have to touch anybody and everybody we can to bring them to the polls,” Flinn said. “We need all hands on deck. The outcome of this election will determine the future of our state. Let us make that determination, not the big money CEOs and billionaires.
“I’m proud to join my brothers and sisters in this fight, a fight in which we firmly stand on the right side of morality,” Flinn. “We will not accept out-of-state corporate CEOs’ vision for this state. We have a much different vision for the future Missouri, for Missouri workers, as a free bargaining state and a right to prosper state.”
HERE TO FIGHT
Newly elected UAW Region 5 Director Vance Pearson traveled to the rally from Kansas City, MO, where UAW members helped elected Democratic Rep. Lauren Arthur by a 20 point margin over Republican Rep. Kevin Corlew in a special election for a state Senate seat.
“We are here to fight,” Pearson said. “If we don’t fight for our own change, somebody else will change it for us.”
‘FIGHTING FOR YOU EVERY SINGLE DAY’
St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, county Prosectutor Bob McCulloch and 5th District County Councilman Pat Dolan (Sprinkler Fitters Local 268), were also in attendance. All three are also facing elections on Aug. 7.
“We all are fighting for you every single day in St. Louis County, and there’s good reason for that,” Stenger said. “You are the backbone of St. Louis County and this entire region. The fact that anyone would try to come in and try to lower your wages and take away your benefits by passing this law is absolutely ridiculous and is infuriating to me!
“I grew up in a union household. My dad was a lineman for Southwestern Bell. In 1978, he packed his kids into the back of a Pinto and went out to knock doors. We were challenging RTW, because we knew then what we know now. If RTW goes into effect, the first thing to go are our wages and our benefits. We know that. That means something to everyone in this room and to our entire community. Because when your wages go, everyone’s wages go. We just cannot have that for our community.”
For more information about Right to Work (RTW) and and the effects of the vote on August 7th, please also read Eyes of the Labor Movement are on Missouri as workers fight to defeat phony RTW.