Right to Work Passed, Jobs Booming in Kentucky

 

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin held a press conference explaining the new enthusiasm in Kentucky and about Kentucky after he signed into law Kentucky’s Right to Work Bill.  In the first quarter of 2017, Kentucky has seen $5.8 billion in new investments creating thousands of jobs.  So far, Kentucky has more new economic investment in the state for the 1st quarter of 2017 than in any other entire year in Kentucky’s history.

***Video Transcript Follows***

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin: In Kentucky’s history the most successful year we’ve ever had in terms of new investment commitments of capital to be invested in the Commonwealth of Kentucky in any calendar year was $5.1 billion.  We’re delighted by the fact that here not even yet the end of April [numbers] we are already in excess of $5.8 billion far exceeding [applause]  far exceeding anything that’s ever been done in a full calendar year and we are just getting warmed up.

We are now competing for business.  We never would have gotten Brady Industries is a perfect example where they have said straight up time and again with very little coverage I might add but they have said repeatedly that they only came here and would only be here because of the fact that we’re right-to-work state.

Policy matters the decisions made in the legislature matter and the net result of this is a sense of enthusiasm in the business community for what’s happening in Kentucky like it has never happened before and the energy we have going on here.

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers: Ultimately,  I think it will lose because it’s been challenged in various states and in federal courts.  But, to think that the right-to-work legislation is going to be struck down by the state Supreme Court if it’s ultimately going that far I think it won’t happen.  The only thing that it is going to do, it’s going to [cause] people like the Brady industries who are coming to this state who may start second-guessing or something of that nature or the 300 jobs how they’re going to locate [here] that came to me specifically and said but for this [Right to Work] legislation we would not be coming here.

Over 2,000 jobs are announced either related to or significant with the Right to Work legislation being passed 2,000 high-paying jobs that’s huge and in my 21 years I’ve not seen anything like it.

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin: The ripple effect is great.  That’s why, to senator Stivers’ point, anybody who would want to interrupt this momentum for political gain shame on them.

And, I say shame on the AFL-CIO for bringing this suit [against Kentucky’s Right to Work Law] under the false canard they’re going to try to help working-class people.  They will hurt working-class people.

The policies that have been put in place by our legislature that are being reinforced by this cabinet, by this administration; we’re the ones doing the work for working people.  To the unions who want to sue to stop this: How about those jobs they’ve been creating in this state?  Where are they?  They [unions] have fewer and fewer of them every single year.

For union workers and non-union workers alike, if you [union bosses] want people to actually work on behalf of working-class people get out of the way.  And, stop being political.  And, stop doing this to try to bolster your ability to get re-elected to a job where you’re paid well and the people who pay their dues to pay you well or not.

[link to Governor Bevin’s website.]