Joe Manchin: “I also rise in support, along with Senator Rockefeller. What a good job he has done. We have both had the honor of…”

“I also rise in support, along with Senator Rockefeller. What a good job he has done. We have both had the honor of serving our great State as Governors. As every Governor and legislator knows, we fight for every job we can create. We fight like the dickens to save every job we have. As the Senator said, he has been fighting these battles for many years. I was in the legislature when he was our Governor. We fought side by side then. When I became Governor, he was a Senator in Washington, and he fought along with me on every job we created and saved. Now here we are again side by side fighting. Ravenswood, in Jackson County, is a very unique place. In Ripley and all the surrounding towns, we have about 22,000 people who live there, and 4,200 people live in Ravenswood, 3,000 in Ripley. One can tell how that is the lifeblood, truly, of the community. Lucy Harbert is the mayor. She is dogmatic. Karen Gorrell is unbelievable. There are men and women there fighting basically for what was promised to them, fighting for survival. I think the big story is that in 2009, the plant closed, as the Senator said. In 2010, all the employees were told all of their health care benefits that had been promised to them and negotiated in good faith were gone--all gone by the stroke of a pen. The courts upheld it. Lo and behold, we have a new management team. We have Mike Bless--and we are talking about Monterey, CA. Clear out there.…”