(JAMESTOWN, Ky.) — Fruit of the Loom’s announcement in April that it would close its only remaining Kentucky plant in Jamestown by the end of the year was a devastating blow to this community.

“It hit hard,” said Russell Springs resident Claude Morrison, who’s worked at Fruit of the Loom for 30 years – during many of which he had perfect attendance.

Morrison and his wife, Terry, who, despite a master’s degree and extensive work experience, has taken a job two hours from home that pays little more than minimum wage, tell their story in a new video released today by the Bluegrass Institute promoting a right-to-work policy for Kentucky.

Watch the video here.

Follow the institute’s right-to-work campaign on the Bluegrass Institute Policy Blog, Facebook site and in Twittersphere @bipps #right2work4ky

The Institute also released a Legislative Scorecard indicating which lawmakers sponsored, supported and opposed right-to-work legislation filed and voted on in the House Committee on Labor and Industry during the 2014 session of the Kentucky General Assembly.

“This is our home and this is where we want to stay; and we do have a right to work,” Terry Morrison said. “And I sincerely hope that our government and legislators will let our voices be heard because we deserve to be heard because we do want to work.”

A right-to-work law simply protects the rights of individual workers to choose to join or not to join a labor union without losing their jobs. Twenty-four states, including neighboring Indiana, Tennessee and Virginia, have right-to-work laws.

According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, real manufacturing GDP grew by 87 percent from 2002 to 2012 in the 22 states with right-to-work laws during that decade but fell by 2 percent in states without right-to-work policies.

“The Morrison’s story – and thousands of stories like theirs from around Kentucky – highlights the urgent need for the Kentucky legislature to pass right-to-work during the 2015 legislative session,” Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters said. “It’s one great thing our state could do that we know would attract the manufacturing job opportunities and allow the Morrisons and many other hardworking Kentuckians to find a good job and remain in the community they call ‘home.’”

For more information, contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com or (270) 320-4376.