Mitch McConnell saves 400 jobs in Louisville aluminum plant

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell received a hero’s welcome Wednesday at a Louisville aluminum fabricating plant that had fallen on hard times until he helped pass fair trade legislation, protecting some 400 jobs.

In a post-earmarks Washington, McConnell has been using his political muscle to protect jobs at home. In recent weeks, he’s been credited with helping to preserve some 1,200 jobs at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant for at least another year, and with protecting 200 jobs at garment factories in Campbellsville and Olive Hill.

For generations, Kentucky politicians have been judged on their success in directing federal dollars to their home state. With that option out of favor, they’ve had to find other ways to prove their worth — such as protecting jobs.

McConnell arrived to applause Wednesday at Cardinal Aluminum Co., posing for photographs with employees, even signing autographs, all because he had helped to win passage of the legislation earlier this year that protected the Louisville firm and others like it from unfair trade practices.

McConnell said he was simply doing his job.

“I wasn’t sent to Washington just to work on international issues,” he said. “I was also sent to look out for Kentucky. And I’m grateful that I was able to be helpful in this particular instance.”

McConnell’s focus on protecting jobs, besides endearing him to voters, is sending a no-so-subtle message about the value of re-electing him in 2014. The idea, said University of Louisville political scientist Dewey Clayton, is to show that Kentuckians benefit from having McConnell to continue serving as the Senate Republican leader, a powerful post that gives him clout on all issues, including jobs.

In the case of Cardinal Aluminum, McConnell helped to get legislation passed in March that allows the U.S. Department of Commerce to continue to impose duties on imports from several countries, including China. McConnell said those duties level the playing field for U.S. companies, including Cardinal Aluminum.

And through McConnell’s efforts, workers at military garment factories in Campbellsville and Olive Hill no longer have to worry about losing their jobs to federal prisoners.

McConnell pressured Federal Prison Industries not to bid on the military contract now held by Campbellsville Apparel Co. and Ashland Sales and Service Co. in Olive Hill.

In Campbellsville, 115 jobs could have been eliminated if prisoners took got the contract for making military T-shirts. And in Olive Hill, 100 jobs would have been cut if the prisoners got the contract for making Air Force windbreakers.