POSTED BY Berry Craig

PADUCAH, Ky. -- Hear the snickers? It’s Sen. Mitch McConnell and his TV commercial crew, according to Jeff Wiggins, president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO.

“Once again, Mitch McConnell has hit the campaign trail as the hero of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant,” Wiggins said in the May issue of The Western Kentucky Worker, the union group’s newsletter. “….If it were up to Mitch McConnell, there would be no union at the Paducah plant, or anywhere else. If it were up to Mitch McConnell, there would be no meaningful worker safety and health laws.”

Wiggins is a member of Steelworkers Local 9447-5 in Calvert City. Atomic plant workers belong to Steelworkers Local 5-550.

McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, is seeking a fifth term. Unions consider him one of the most anti-labor lawmakers in Washington.

McConnell has been running a TV ad which claims he championed cancer screening programs and “compensation for sick workers” made ill from exposure to radiation and other hazards during the Cold War when the plant helped produce nuclear weapons. McConnell calls the workers “patriots.”

Wiggins says the ad is a sucker play aimed at his union brothers and sisters.

“McConnell’s ad implies that the Paducah plant workers are with him,” said Wiggins, who is also on the state AFL-CIO Executive Board. “The ad represents one of the oldest anti-union tools around – divide-and-conquer.”

Wiggins said Republicans like McConnell usually try to split the union vote with hot-button social issues such as gun control, school prayer, abortion and same-sex marriage. “[Republican Gov.] Ernie Fletcher tried divide-and-conquer last year and it didn’t work. Labor – including members of the plant union – stood united behind Steve Beshear.”

McConnell’s TV spot quotes some current and former workers. "He's been the champion, he's held hearings, he's kicked open doors, he's appropriated funds, he's delivered the goods for these workers,” said David Fuller, a former president of the plant union.

Wiggins says many plant workers – past and present -- and members of other unions don’t think McConnell is their “champion.” The senator seldom sides with unions on issues, said Wiggins, citing the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education, which rates members of Congress.

McConnell voted right on union issues 11 percent of the time last year. His lifetime COPE score is also 11 percent, Wiggins said.

“McConnell favors anything that makes it harder for unions to organize and operate,” Wiggins said. “He opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. He favors the so-called right-to-work.

“His wife, Elaine Chao, is one of the most anti-union labor secretaries in American history. Chao hates the Employee Free Choice Act as much as her spouse. Last year, she traveled the country – on our tax dollars -- urging newspaper editorial writers to denounce the measure.”

Wiggins added, “In short, McConnell mainly ‘delivers the goods’ not for workers, but for those who, if they had their way, would turn back the clock to a time when unions were few and far between, when most workers toiled long hours at low pay in jobs that threatened lives and limbs….He has fought us tooth and nail for as long as he has been in Washington.”

Wiggins also said, “The cancer screening programs and ‘compensation for sick workers’ McConnell brags about have had strong bipartisan support in Congress. Democrats consider plant workers ‘patriots,’ too.”