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Links to commercial press stories are functional at the date of posting. In some cases, links "expire" when the source would like to begin charging you for old news. WSLC Reports Today  links to all stories of interest to organized labor; some positive, some negative. The intention is to inform.  The creation of a link does not constitute an endorsement of that story's content.

Reports for January 6-10, 2003

Previous weeks' news: Jan 2-3 -- Dec. 10-12 -- Dec. 4-6

FRIDAY, Jan. 10 -- WSLC Legislative Update: A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES
(If you are not already on the WSLC e-mail list to receive our newsletter... Get on it!)
— In today's Olympian -- News of historic plant's closure devastates brewery families
...plus -- Most workers didn't see it coming, stunned by news of closure
— In the P.S. Business Journal -- Boeing begins new round of layoffs
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Legislature hopes to restore trust; some push prevailing wage repeal
...plus -- Job cuts likely in King County's waste division -- County liaison says unions "on board."
— In today's Spokesman-Review -- Area home care workers headed to Olympia to seek pay hike
— In today's Everett Herald -- Providence Everett Medical Center cuts jobs, reduces hours
— In today's News Tribune -- Bush stimulus plan does little for Washington state
— In today's Washington Post -- Democratic governors seek $50 billion in aid to states
— In today's L.A. Times -- California Gov. Davis seeks $8.3 billion tax increase
At AFLCIO.org -- Shameful decision uses "war on terror" to punish war's frontline workers
— In today's Washington Post -- Feds deny airport screeners' petition for union representation
Also at AFLCIO.org -- AFL-CIO names Karen Ackerman political director
— From the AP -- Former AFL-CIO political director seeks to set up union advocacy non-profit 
— In today's Denver Post -- NLRB accuses Wal-Mart of harassing workers to prevent unionization
— In the USA Today -- Rising health insurance costs fire up unions
— In today's N.Y. Times -- U.S. economy lost 101,000 jobs in December
...plus -- Deaths on the job, slaps on the wrist -- Part 3 of series on Alabama firm McWane, Inc.
— In the Chronicle for Higher Education -- United Academic Workers? UAW now a force in higher ed

THURSDAY, Jan. 9 -- DOT chief MacDonald takes on EFF critics, defends prevailing wage
At the governor's website -- Gov. Locke names Paul Trause new director of L&I
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Transportation chief seeks to put brakes on critics
...plus -- Unemployment assistance extended for state's jobless
...plus -- Miller Brewing closing 106-year-old Tumwater brewery
— In today's Seattle Times -- Smallpox vaccination plan carries unnecessary risks -- Op-ed by SEIU 1199NW President Diane Sosne: The Bush administration's plan has been conceived and announced hastily, without much discussion or input from the public. There is still time to add safeguards before we start vaccinating hundreds of thousands of people. Let's fix what is wrong with this plan.
— In today's Spokesman-Review -- SPEEA engineers ratify contract at Spokane parts plant
— In yesterday's Columbian -- Business lobbyists in tech sector to seek state tax breaks
— In today's Bellingham Herald -- U.S. appeals to Canada to alter timber industry practices
At UFCW.org -- Wal-Mart's war on workers: A new frontline report
— In today's Washington Post -- United flight attendants OK  9% pay cuts in effort to save company
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Democrats who backed tax cut in '01 balk at Bush's latest proposal
...plus -- Family's fortune wrung from workers' sweat, blood (Part II of series about deadly company.)
...plus -- U.S. begins talks about a trade pact with Central America
...and finally -- Jobless, and stunned -- Herbert column: President Bush says, "I worry about people who are out of work. They need our help." But the hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of "help" that he proposed would go overwhelmingly to the princes of the new American plutocracy, not the jobless.

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 8 -- YOUR union news belongs right here, so send it!
— In today's Seattle P-I -- United Airlines issues layoff warnings; 2,000 in Washington affected
...plus -- Washington's state tax system hurts poor more than any other state, study finds
— In today's Seattle Times -- Some relief expected for 44,000 jobless here as Congress acts (finally)
— In today's UW Daily -- UW accused of employee misclassification
— In today's News Tribune -- On the state budget, parties are poles apart
— In today's Olympian -- State legislators shun raises
...plus -- Study: '90s boom went past loggers -- More than half lost their jobs between 1990 to 1998. Half of the displaced workers moved, retired or remain jobless. And half of the ones who did get work, ended up in service and retail jobs paying less than they made 10 years earlier.
— In yesterday's Columbian -- Students criticize political flap over Sen. Murray's remarks
— In the new Seattle Weekly -- Tough-guy Talmadge: Political warrior takes on incumbent governor
— In today's Spokesman-Review -- Idaho's GOP governor proposes sales, cigarette tax increases
At AFLCIO.org -- AFL-CIO Wellstone Award to go to Gov. Dean (VT), State Sen. Burton (CA)
— In today's L.A. Times -- Bush's economic plan leaves states in the cold
— In today's Washington Post -- War's cost may dwarf stimulus effect of Bush plan
— In today's N.Y. Times -- The wrong stimulant -- Editorial: (Bush's tax proposal) is a cynical grab bag of unrelated and mislabeled policies that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest, along with belated support for the extension of expired unemployment benefits... Inexcusably, the package includes no assistance for states struggling to keep up with rising security and health care costs.
...plus -- At a Texas foundry, an indifference to life -- Tyler Pipe is a hellishly hot place where men are regularly disfigured by amputations and burns, where turnover is so high that convicts are recruited from local prisons, where some workers urinate in their pants because their bosses refuse to let them step away from the manufacturing line for even a few moments.

TUESDAY, Jan. 7 -- AFL-CIO's Sweeney: We need economic recovery for all
— In today's Washington Post -- Airlines lobby for labor law changes to make strikes more difficult
— In today's Spokesman-Review -- Machinists accept wage cuts in sale of Boeing's Spokane plant
— In today's Olympian -- State GOP lawmakers vow reform to make state more "business friendly"
— In today's Yakima H-R -- Keep finding ways to provide housing for farm workers (Editorial coming one day after the H-R argued our "business unfriendly" minimum wage shouldn't apply to agriculture.)
— In today's News Tribune -- Mental health lawsuit is a sad symptom of inadequate funding (editorial)
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Eyman and his detractors file dueling initiatives
— In today's Everett Herald -- Eyman sends another message to legislators (editorial)
...plus -- School supporters expect education to be protected (op-ed by WEA's Charles Hasse)
— In today's Salem S-J -- Uncertainty grips Oregon's state employees
...plus -- Many Oregonians have little sympathy for public sector employees
— In today's N.Y. Times -- The Charles Schwab tax cut -- Editorial: Bush's latest tax cut proposal is the wrong move at the wrong time for the benefit of the wrong people.
...plus -- An irrelevant proposal -- Krugman column: Debating dividend taxation is to play Bush's game: To change the subject. Weren't we supposed to be discussing an emergency economic stimulus? Ideology aside, will Bush ever decide that his job includes solving problems, not just using them?
— In today's Washington Post -- Who's playing class "warfare"? -- Dionne column: If I were in the president's position -- or in the position of the wealthy contributors who lavishly financed the campaigns of his political friends last year -- I wouldn't want anyone to talk about class either.
— In today's San Jose Mercury News -- West Coast dockworkers begin voting on new contract
— In today's Newark Star Ledger -- Scalia's son to step down from post at Dept. of Labor
— At ABCNews.com -- AFL-CIO to give award to Vermont Gov. (and presidential hopeful) Dean

MONDAY, Jan. 6
At AFLCIO.org -- Bush plan to boost economy? Tax breaks for the wealthiest investors
— In today's Washington Post -- Analysis find little gain in Bush dividend tax cut plan
...plus -- The tax cut trap -- Editorial: Under Bush's tenure the budget has swung with alarming speed from surplus to deficit, largely caused by his last unaffordable tax cut. Meanwhile, he blithely ignores the impending wave of health care and retirement costs. As the year goes on, he will insist that Congress squeeze spending for highways, parks, schools and other legitimate needs. If lawmakers want to avoid that trap in September, they should not let the president set it in February.
— In Sunday's Yakima H-R -- Legislature needs to make state more business friendly  -- An editorial which accepts as fact that this state is anti-business (it's not) and prescribes a lower minimum wage.
— In today's Everett Herald -- It's too early to press budget panic button (editorial)
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Funding higher education critical to state (editorial)
— In today's Seattle Times -- Prison population shackles state budgets (Peirce column)
...plus on Sunday -- Pruning the predictable crisis (editorial re: temporary housing for farm workers)
— In Saturday's Tri-City Herald -- Sunnyside hospital employees (IBT 524) mull strike
— New from CorpWatch.org -- West Coast dockworkers won despite Bush doctrine -- The Bush administration, which also used back-to-work orders against employees at Northwest and United Airlines, has now established a clear precedent: Interruptions of economic activity are a threat to national security. As a result, the entire terrain of labor negotiations has shifted dramatically in favor of business and many other unions may soon find themselves facing federal intervention.
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Waiting for the President to pass the tax-cut gravy -- In the president's last tax cut, corporations were forced to accept much less than they had wanted... they now feel owed. The real mystery is why corporations should get any new tax breaks at all. After all, companies are paying less and less in taxes each year, making the 35 percent corporate tax rate a fiction.
— Sunday from Time Magazine -- Can Wal-Mart get any bigger?

Previous weeks' news: Jan 2-3 -- Dec. 10-12 -- Dec. 4-6

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9
DOT chief takes on EFF critics, defends prevailing wage

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8
YOUR union news belongs right here, so send it!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 7
AFL-CIO's Sweeney: We need economic recovery for all

Following is an op-ed written by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney which appears in today's edition of the Washington Post:

Economic recovery for all
By John J. Sweeney

The clock's running, and working families are being walloped by the economy. Rapid-fire layoffs have communities from Pascagoula to Peoria on their backs, and with long-term unemployment way up over last year, people who lose their jobs are increasingly out of the game. Good health care is being priced beyond reach. State budgets are bleeding red ink, with schools, Medicaid and crime prevention tops on the injured list. The gap between the rich and poor widens, and CEOs continue running up their personal score.

So how does President Bush respond? He says he's thinking "about how to help those folks who are looking for work." And then he talks up a cut in the dividends tax that will give big breaks to the very wealthiest taxpayers but won't create jobs and won't help workers hit hard by the downturn or average American families.

Time out. Where's our economic game plan?

Five months ago, when the president held a pre-election economic summit in Waco, Tex., to demonstrate his concern about the ailing economy, he was persuaded not to propose a tax cut on dividends. Then as now, economists said it would not yield a short-term stimulus, and political advisers said it would provide fodder for charges of giveaways to the rich.

The notion of passing off an expensive, permanent change to the tax code that benefits the most affluent taxpayers under the guise of creating jobs for desperate unemployed workers should still generate hoots. And the warning by the president that his help-the-rich proposal may elicit "class warfare" from its opponents should be greeted by groans, if not outright boos.

But outrageous contradictions are not even a novelty these days.

Bush speaks of the need for neighborliness and aid to the poor, but he cuts energy assistance to low-income families and looks the other way while House Republican leaders coldheartedly adjourn for the holidays after blocking consideration of a bipartisan Senate bill to extend emergency unemployment benefits.

In the same week that profitable Maytag stuns America by announcing it will close its Galesburg, Ill., plant and lay off 1,300 workers, the good-news-only Bush administration reveals that it will discontinue its monthly Mass Layoffs Statistics report. The move follows the 28th straight month of decline for U.S. manufacturing. And now the president uses the excuse of a "wartime budget" to cut domestic basics that working families depend on most but pushes ahead with whopping tax cut proposals that would explode the budget deficit.

Instead of disingenuous rhetoric, what's needed from the White House is an honest, straightforward game plan for economic recovery, a plan for all, and not just for some.

Congress should pass and Bush should sign a recovery plan that kicks in immediately, not years from now, and that puts money in the pockets of families that need it and will spend it to lift the economy fast, without weakening it in the years ahead.

As its first order of business, Congress should extend the Temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation program to help unemployed workers and boost the economy. A 26-week extension of emergency unemployment benefits should be made retroactive to Dec. 28 for all unemployed workers who exhaust their regular state benefits and still cannot find jobs (including those whose benefits ran out before Dec. 28), and health care should be extended to them. Every dollar in unemployment benefits results in an estimated $2.15 in economic growth.

Second, to boost demand and spur job growth, one-time tax rebates should go to all individuals who make payroll tax payments, thus targeting benefits to low- and moderate-income Americans. Pumping $65 billion into the economy by rebating 3.5 percent of the first $15,000 each worker earned in 2002 would, according to the Economic Policy Institute, boost GDP by 2 percentage points and create 1.5 million new jobs in 2003. Increasing the rebates to $1,000 per person would stimulate the economy even more.

We also need to give immediate financial help to the states to avert major and irreversible damage from the worst state budget problems since World War II.

We need to accelerate sound, job-creating investments to rebuild schools, transportation and water systems and our industrial base.

And finally, the minimum wage should be increased to correct the gross underpayment of low-wage workers.

What we cannot afford are insensitivity to real economic pain, dishonesty about the problems we face and permanent new tax breaks for the affluent that will choke off the resources necessary to meet the needs of America's families.

The writer is president of the AFL-CIO.