Kentucky ‘Rock of Labor’ Honors Workers at Closed Tire Factory

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/05/09/kentucky-rock-of-labor-honors-workers-at-closed-tire-factory/

Berry Craig

Berry Craig is a professor of history at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah, a member of AFT Local 6010 and the author of "True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon & Burgoo" and "Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War."

Kentucky ‘Rock of Labor’ Honors Workers at Closed Tire Factory

by Berry Craig, May 9, 2010



The “Rock of Labor” found a good home. Says Terry Beane, the last president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 665 in Mayfield, Ky.:

“Years from now, some of our grandkids will see it, and they may not know what it is. They’ll ask us, and that will lead to some wonderful stories.”

Union memorials are rare on courthouse lawns. The Rock of Labor rests in an honored spot outside the 1880s-vintage, red brick Graves County courthouse in Mayfield.

The 3,000-pound, rough-hewn brown boulder commemorates Local 665, the union at the big Mayfield Continental-General Tire factory. The local represented hourly workers at the plant, which closed in 2007 and is being razed by a salvage company.

Workers voted to join the union shortly after the plant started up in 1960 to manufacture car and truck tires, mainly for auto makers in Detroit. Local 665 was part of the United Rubber Workers until the it merged with the United Steelworkers.

Says Jeff Wiggins, president of the Western Kentucky Area Council in Paducah, which is also close to Mayfield:

Local 665 may be gone, but it won’t be forgotten. We were happy to contribute the stone as a monument to our brothers and sisters who lost their jobs to corporate greed.

FULL story at link.