"‘Stand strong': Can West Virginians work together?" article by Ken Ward, Jr at the Coal Tattoo

This is one of the most insightful and intelligent articles discussing the take over of another state legislature by the right wingers and what these right wing vandals are doing in state after state. Ken Ward, Jr makes the excellent observation that the right wing has been successful in splitting labor movement from the environmental movement, who should actually be natural allies. Health, safety and the future of their children should be causes that ally the environmentalists with labor.

Ken Ward, Jr is one of this USA's finest writers. He should be getting much more attention nationally. A great voice of the people.

This article deserves to be read and reread and sent to as many people as possible. This message needs to go to every Democratic Party politician.

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2015/02/06/stand-strong-can-west-virginians-work-together/#more-37502

"It’s easy on the one hand to almost dismiss this stuff, saying things like, “West Virginians voted for these guys, so they have to live with it,” or even — something I hear increasingly from younger West Virginians — that they’re tired of the politics here and would rather just move away. It’s just as easy to pretend that issues like the re-emergence of the push for a “right-to-work” law aren’t really that important anymore.

But I can’t escape the conclusion of former Gazette columnist William Miernyk, writing many years ago — the last time right-to-work was being pushed:

The major objection to right-to-work legislation, the bottom line, if I may be forgiven the use of the abominable cliche, is that it is the most divisive kind of legislation imaginable. The only way residents of the Mountain State can hope to cope with its myriad problems is by cooperation among all segments of our society. The best way I know to ensure that such cooperation will not be forthcoming is to pass a right-to-work law."

and

"I’m talking, of course, about yesterday’s public hearing on the West Virginia Coal Association’s centerpiece of legislation for this year’s session. As described in our Gazette story this morning:

Representatives of working coal miners and from the state’s environmental community turned out Thursday to oppose a legislative initiative from the West Virginia Coal Association, saying the bill wrongly weakens protection for workers and water quality.

Leaders of the United Mine Workers union spoke out against the provisions of the “Coal Jobs and Safety Act” during a House Energy Committee public hearing, as did representatives from the Sierra Club and the West Virginia Environmental Council.

UMWA officials don’t like the Coal Association’s efforts to roll back important workplace protections for coal miners. Environmental groups don’t like the industry’s insistence on weakening water quality standards that protect us all. As Jeremy Richardson of the Union of Concerned Scientists said:

This bill is a real effort to divide the environmental and the labor folks. It’s saying that we can try to keep the environment clean or we can protect jobs, and that’s a fundamentally false dichotomy. What we’re seeing here is the labor and environmental communities both coming out and opposing this bill."