Post by Logan on May 10, 2016 0:25:23 GMT -6
Hillary Clinton: We owe West Virginia a real investment in its future
By Hillary Clinton
Last week, I took a road trip through the beautiful hills of Kentucky and West Virginia, where hardworking people have fallen on some incredibly difficult times.
In Williamson, I met a young man named Brandon. His father worked in the mines, and Brandon always assumed he’d follow in his footsteps.
Then his dad lost his job. So did thousands of others. That forced Brandon to rethink his entire future.
Brandon’s hardly alone. There are young people like him in families and communities across Appalachia. And it’s not just mining jobs that are gone. The decrease in coal has meant cuts to rail service, which has put railroaders out of work. And more steelworkers are being laid off every day that China keeps illegally flooding our market with its own cheap steel.
It didn’t used to be this way.
For generations, Appalachian coal lit up cities and towns and kept assembly lines rolling all across this country. Steel plants rolled out the raw materials that shaped skylines and industries. Chemical plants made products that improved our standard of living.
These jobs weren’t easy. In the 20th century, more than 100,000 miners died on the job. More than double that number succumbed to black lung disease. The United Mine Workers put their lives on the line to protect miners on the job and in retirement. Their hard-won victories helped strengthen the labor movement in other industries nationwide.
The voices of these workers are still essential today. And more than ever, we need to stand in solidarity with them.
Coal companies like Patriot and Peabody and Arch Coal are trying to get out of paying workers and retirees the benefits they earned and deserve. And mine safety is still a huge problem. We all remember the 29 brave men who perished at the Upper Big Branch Mine. The mine’s owner, Don Blankenship, neglected workers’ safety for years. Because of weak laws, he only received one year in prison.
Mr. Blankenship actually showed up to protest my visit to West Virginia last week. I wear that fact as a badge of honor. If Donald Trump wants his support, he can have it.
As for me, I want us to honor our obligations to workers past and present. We owe miners, power plant workers, and railroaders the benefits they’ve earned and the respect they deserve. That’s why I support the Miners Protection Act, which is sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin, and the Mine Safety Protection Act. We need to strengthen laws to hold executives like Don Blankenship accountable when they neglect workers’ health and safety.
We need to protect our steelworkers, which means standing up to China. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Chinese leaders, and as president, I’ll throw the book at them. We’ve got to stop them from trying to fix their own economy on the backs of American workers. And we should push for stronger “rule of origin standards” so that Chinese steel doesn’t have a backdoor into American markets.
We can’t stop there. We need to invest in the future of West Virginia and all of Appalachia.
That means creating more good-paying jobs. In Mingo County, I learned about programs that the community started to help local entrepreneurs get new ventures off the ground and to put people to work refurbishing homes and businesses. They’re also repurposing abandoned mine lands for a new industrial park that will bring in bigger employers. That’s the kind of locally-driven development that works. The federal government should support it. And we need to invest in education and training programs that actually work. The last thing workers need are more retraining programs for jobs that don’t exist.
And investing in West Virginia’s future means investing in its families. Too many workers and retirees with black lung disease have been denied the health care they need. Too many young people who go away to college don’t come back, because they don’t see a way to make a living. Others stay and have nothing to fill their days. For many, these problems are too big to bear. The result is drug abuse, alcohol abuse and suicide.
As my husband says, whether folks are dying from diabetes or heroin or suicide, they’re really dying of a broken heart.
We need a national plan of action to tackling substance abuse, because addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. And the same goes for mental health. We should treat it just as seriously as we do physical health.
These ideas are just a start. West Virginia faces complicated challenges, and there are no easy solutions. But we owe it to young people like Brandon to provide him with the same opportunity and security that his father had growing up, and together we can.
So I hope I can count on your vote on Tuesday. As president, I’ll do everything I can to make sure we’re building a future for West Virginia that’s worthy of its past.
-----
Hillary Clinton, former U.S. secretary of state and senator from New York, is a Democratic candidate for president.
- See more at: www.wvgazettemail.com/gazette-opinion/20160508/hillary-clinton-we-owe-west-virginia-a-real-investment-in-its-future-gazette#sthash.YBScCR8Z.dpuf
By Hillary Clinton
Last week, I took a road trip through the beautiful hills of Kentucky and West Virginia, where hardworking people have fallen on some incredibly difficult times.
In Williamson, I met a young man named Brandon. His father worked in the mines, and Brandon always assumed he’d follow in his footsteps.
Then his dad lost his job. So did thousands of others. That forced Brandon to rethink his entire future.
Brandon’s hardly alone. There are young people like him in families and communities across Appalachia. And it’s not just mining jobs that are gone. The decrease in coal has meant cuts to rail service, which has put railroaders out of work. And more steelworkers are being laid off every day that China keeps illegally flooding our market with its own cheap steel.
It didn’t used to be this way.
For generations, Appalachian coal lit up cities and towns and kept assembly lines rolling all across this country. Steel plants rolled out the raw materials that shaped skylines and industries. Chemical plants made products that improved our standard of living.
These jobs weren’t easy. In the 20th century, more than 100,000 miners died on the job. More than double that number succumbed to black lung disease. The United Mine Workers put their lives on the line to protect miners on the job and in retirement. Their hard-won victories helped strengthen the labor movement in other industries nationwide.
The voices of these workers are still essential today. And more than ever, we need to stand in solidarity with them.
Coal companies like Patriot and Peabody and Arch Coal are trying to get out of paying workers and retirees the benefits they earned and deserve. And mine safety is still a huge problem. We all remember the 29 brave men who perished at the Upper Big Branch Mine. The mine’s owner, Don Blankenship, neglected workers’ safety for years. Because of weak laws, he only received one year in prison.
Mr. Blankenship actually showed up to protest my visit to West Virginia last week. I wear that fact as a badge of honor. If Donald Trump wants his support, he can have it.
As for me, I want us to honor our obligations to workers past and present. We owe miners, power plant workers, and railroaders the benefits they’ve earned and the respect they deserve. That’s why I support the Miners Protection Act, which is sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin, and the Mine Safety Protection Act. We need to strengthen laws to hold executives like Don Blankenship accountable when they neglect workers’ health and safety.
We need to protect our steelworkers, which means standing up to China. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Chinese leaders, and as president, I’ll throw the book at them. We’ve got to stop them from trying to fix their own economy on the backs of American workers. And we should push for stronger “rule of origin standards” so that Chinese steel doesn’t have a backdoor into American markets.
We can’t stop there. We need to invest in the future of West Virginia and all of Appalachia.
That means creating more good-paying jobs. In Mingo County, I learned about programs that the community started to help local entrepreneurs get new ventures off the ground and to put people to work refurbishing homes and businesses. They’re also repurposing abandoned mine lands for a new industrial park that will bring in bigger employers. That’s the kind of locally-driven development that works. The federal government should support it. And we need to invest in education and training programs that actually work. The last thing workers need are more retraining programs for jobs that don’t exist.
And investing in West Virginia’s future means investing in its families. Too many workers and retirees with black lung disease have been denied the health care they need. Too many young people who go away to college don’t come back, because they don’t see a way to make a living. Others stay and have nothing to fill their days. For many, these problems are too big to bear. The result is drug abuse, alcohol abuse and suicide.
As my husband says, whether folks are dying from diabetes or heroin or suicide, they’re really dying of a broken heart.
We need a national plan of action to tackling substance abuse, because addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. And the same goes for mental health. We should treat it just as seriously as we do physical health.
These ideas are just a start. West Virginia faces complicated challenges, and there are no easy solutions. But we owe it to young people like Brandon to provide him with the same opportunity and security that his father had growing up, and together we can.
So I hope I can count on your vote on Tuesday. As president, I’ll do everything I can to make sure we’re building a future for West Virginia that’s worthy of its past.
-----
Hillary Clinton, former U.S. secretary of state and senator from New York, is a Democratic candidate for president.
- See more at: www.wvgazettemail.com/gazette-opinion/20160508/hillary-clinton-we-owe-west-virginia-a-real-investment-in-its-future-gazette#sthash.YBScCR8Z.dpuf