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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. Disclaimer: WSLC Reports Today  links to all stories of interest to organized labor; some positive and some negative. The intention is to inform.  The creation of a link does not constitute an endorsement of that story's content.

Reports for September 3-6, 2002

Previous weeks' news: Aug. 26-30 -- Aug. 19-21 -- Aug. 12-16

FRIDAY, September 6 -- Tell Wal-Mart to stop denying its workers their rights
— In today's Spokesman-Review -- IAM goes silent in latest effort to get Boeing deal
— In today's Everett Herald -- IAM continues talks with mediator, but Boeing not budging
— In today's News-Tribune -- Port talks yield health benefits deal
...plus -- Legality of teachers' strike probably won't be tested
— In today's Eastside Journal -- No statute, ruling bans educators from striking
...plus -- Teachers must get back in the classroom (editorial)
— In yesterday's Daily World -- Aberdeen teachers reject contract, but have no plans to strike
— In today's Yakima H-R -- Grocery workers on the job after almost all approve contract
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Referendum 51 pitched as safety measure -- Damn straight.
...plus -- Supporters of Seattle Housing Levy mobilize their forces for vote
...plus -- WEA reaches contract agreement with its employees
— In today's Seattle Times -- Some districts OK school closure for WEA rally Jan. 14 in Olympia
— In yesterday's Skagit Valley Herald -- County legal assistants push to unionize
— Yesterday from AP (via ABCnews.com) -- Washington state's home care workers unionize
— In today's Oregonian -- Consolidated Freightways gets OK to issue paychecks
— In today's Salem S-J -- Senators' bid to kill Oregon's PERS fails
At AFLCIO.org -- Alliance for Retired Americans calls for prescription drug benefit
— In today's Bremerton Sun -- Spiraling health costs put Kitsap County in a spin
— In today's Washington Post -- Health insurance prognosis is poor
...and yesterday -- The union factor in Homeland Security, by the numbers
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Glenn Watts, former CWA president, dies at 82
...plus -- The bully's pulpit -- Krugman column: Bush and the Republicans don't really think they can convince people that Social Security privatization isn't privatization. But that's not the goal... the goal is to "mau-mau reporters out of using the word 'privatization' in this context." And the intimidation of the media will probably succeed. (The GOP has successfully bullied many in the press into using the term "death tax" for what for 100 years was known as the estate tax, and intimidated reporters into using "trade promotion authority" to refer to what the entire country knows as Fast Track.)

THURSDAY, September 5 -- For those of you who missed last month's convention...
the 2002 WSLC Convention highlights and the 2002 WSLC Resolutions are now posted.
— In today's Yakima H-R -- Grocery workers (UFCW 1439) OK new contract
— In today's So. County Journal -- Boeing firm on last offer; IAM to continue talks with mediators
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Whatever happens, morale at Boeing will be shot (Virgin column)
...plus -- Governor Locke says teacher strikes are illegal
...plus -- WEA lacks contract -- for its own employees
— In today's Seattle Times -- WEA sees bigger battle ahead... in Olympia
...plus -- Longshore talks restart, but union won't rule out slowdowns
...plus -- Market glut doomed Spanaway lumber mill
— In today's News-Tribune -- SPEEA ready to talk contract with Boeing
...plus -- State breaks out dollar effect of Ref. 51, other initiatives
— In today's Everett Herald -- Snohomish teachers walk the line
— In today's Eastside Journal -- Issaquah teachers man the picket lines
— In yesterday's Columbian -- Laid-off Consolidated workers confront glum future
— In today's Salem S-J -- State Senate will vote on killing Oregon's PERS
— In today's Washington Post -- Tax cut plan mired in economic, political debate
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Liberalism's patriotic vision -- Op-ed: The era that began Sept. 11 would be a superb time to crack the jingoists' claim to a monopoly of patriotic virtue. Post-Vietnam liberals have an opening now, freed of our 60's flag anxiety and our reflexive negativity, to embrace a liberal patriotism that is unapologetic and uncowed. It's time for the patriotism of mutual aid, not just symbolic displays or self-congratulation. It's time to close the gap between the nation we love and the justice we also love.

WEDNESDAY, September 4 -- Labor, Legionnaires honor both sides of Centralia Massacre
— In today's Seattle Times -- Boeing, Machinists to talk separately with mediator today
— In today's News-Tribune -- Work goes on as normal at Boeing, ports
...plus -- If public sector unions strike, they won't get sympathy -- Richard Davis column hatin' unions.
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Teachers head to picket lines in Issaquah, Snohomish districts
...plus -- Farm workers union seeks review of workers' comp claims
...plus -- Central Washington grocery workers are voting on contract
— In today's Salem S-J -- Oregon grocery workers discuss strike
— In today's Yakima H-R -- Everyone must work together to return money to Braceros (editorial)
— In yesterday's Aberdeen Daily World -- Russian ship turned away by IBU picketers
— In yesterday's Vancouver Columbian -- Sweet and sour fare: Union picnickers express concern
...plus -- Unions need to rethink their tactics -- Column: Unions have cried strike "wolf" way too often.
— In The Nation -- The shame of meatpacking -- "The superintendent said, 'You've got sixty seconds to get back to work, or everyone's fired,'" says Maria Martinez. "We didn't move, and then he said, 'OK, you guys are all fired.' So we went outside, and the next thing we knew there were hundreds of people outside." This was in June 1999, at an IBP meatpacking plant near Pasco, Washington.
Today at AFLCIO.org -- No way to honor heroes -- One year later, the workers to whom the country turned on Sept. 11 find their collective bargaining rights, wages and jobs under attack.
— In today's N.Y. Times -- Labor leaders hail workers for Sept. 11 sacrifices
...plus -- Conservatives, teachers unions and poisoned debate
...plus -- Big pharmaceutical companies bully two corporate members to quit generic drug coalition
...plus -- Cheap power gone, Montana to vote on buying back dams -- Moral: Deregulation sucks.
— Today at MSNBC.com -- New discord on Homeland Security over union, civil service protections
— In today's Washington Post -- Americans, Europeans agree: U.S. shouldn't go it alone in Iraq war

TUESDAY, September 3 -- Bender: Honor Our "Everyday Heroes" Every Day (monthly column)
...plus -- Group Health nurses succeed in averting closure of Eastside birthing unit
— In today's Seattle Times -- Port workers stay on job; ILWU vows to work unless locked out (This after yesterday's report of a breakdown in negotiations: Port labor talks hit wall; work may slow.)
...plus yesterday -- Bush Administration should keep clear of dock fight (op-ed)
— In today's Seattle P-I -- Trucking giant Consolidated shuts down; 15,500 laid off
...plus -- Strained labor talks stoke holiday fervor
...plus -- Machinists, Boeing await Wednesday meeting results
...plus -- Machinists' worries are in Boeing's interest -- Virgin column: Boeing's strategy (of moving jobs overseas) presumes countries will be interested in moving up the industrial evolutionary ladder to the point of sophistication at which they can make jet components -- and stop there. They won't.
— In yesterday's News-Tribune -- Labor Day 2002: Bracing for strikes
...plus -- Attention working folks: Look at all you've done (column)
— The latest on teacher talks: Issaquah (strike likely, more talks today), Clover Park (strike unlikely)
— In yesterday's Wenatchee World -- On the labor front: Fighting for workers' compensation funds
— In today's Olympian -- Hospitals try to lure nurses
— In today's P.S. Business Journal -- Growth unlikely to solve health care crisis
At AFLCIO.org -- Labor Day celebrations salute everyday working heroes
— In today's Washington Post -- President Bush courts renegade Carpenters Union
— In today's Baltimore Sun -- Sweeney, UFCW see no reason to fight grocery self-scanners

Previous weeks' news: Aug. 26-30 -- Aug. 19-21 -- Aug. 12-16

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
Tell Wal-Mart to stop denying its workers their rights

Wal-Mart is America's largest private employer with some 3,250 stores and a million workers. Whenever workers speak out for a voice on the job to help make Wal-Mart a better place to work, the company deploys an anti-worker unit to implement a systematic campaign full of illegalities and propaganda to deny workers their rights and silence their voice.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued more than 30 complaints in 14 states against Wal-Mart's illegal anti-worker actions. The NLRB charges against Wal-Mart include, withholding benefits in retaliation for union activity, encouraging employees engaging in misconduct directed at co-workers who support the union, and coercively interrogating employees. 

In numerous states workers have filed law suits against Wal-Mart, accusing the company of systematically forcing them to work long hours off the clock. Women workers have even filed a class-action sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart. Lawsuits are only a short-term solution
to a larger problem. Wal-Mart workers want to make the giant retailer a better place to work. Real justice for workers at Wal-Mart will only come when workers have a real workplace voice through the support of a union. 

ACTION ALERT: Tell Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott to end the vicious anti-union campaign his company uses to prevent employees from organizing to make their store a better place to work. Sign an online petition, set up by the Worker Voice Activist Network of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, demanding that Wal-Mart:

• Abide by American principles of fair play and free elections

• Allow Wal-Mart employees to have free, fair and uncoerced elections 

• Live up to its legal obligation to bargain a contract when the employees choose to have the union represent them

Thank you for supporting Wal-Mart workers' right to organize a union. For more information, about Wal-Mart workers' efforts to organize, check out www.walmartworkerslv.com.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
Labor, Legionnaires honor both sides of Centralia Massacre

The following story appeared in Tuesday's edition of the Centralia Chronicle, but because that newspaper's online content expires after 24 hours, we share it with you here:

1919 massacre remembered
Healing begins: Labor invites American Legion; honors both sides of Centralia event

By Brian Mittge
The Chronicle

Calling it a "historic day" drenched in symbolism, Lewis County union leaders invited the American Legion, a former reservoir of anti-union nationalism, to lay roses on Centralia's Sentinel statue during Monday's Labor Day celebration in Centralia.

Members of the Centralia American Legion post, some of them retired union members themselves, laid the flowers on a statue erected in 1924 to memorialize four Centralia veterans shot and killed by radical labor unionists Nov. 11, 1919.

Later Monday afternoon, under gray skies and a chilly late-summer breeze a few miles away, two dozen union activists laid another batch of roses on what has become a companion memorial — the grave of Wesley Everest, who was jailed and lynched for his part in the Armistice Day killings.

The Centralia American Legion was formed after the killings, but included many of the same vets who fought the radical unionists in 1919 and for decades after disputed the facts of the Centralia tragedy.

In 1997 the national American Legion organization passed a resolution criticizing the downtown Centralia mural commemorating Everest and his fellow workers.

"Let's quit squabbling about something that happened 80 years ago. There are too many young people around here who need good jobs to not shoot for the future," said Chehalin Bob Guenther, head of the Thurston-Lewis Labor Council.

Guenther pledged to invite the American Legion to present the American flag at every event organized labor holds in Centralia.

The legionnaires echoed Guenther's sentiments during the Labor Picnic.

"It's a little late, but better late than never," said Legionnaire and World War II Navy veteran Tom Cole, who retired from the meatcutter's union. "None of us were around (in 1919)."

"We're over it," said Korean War veteran and former Centralia Mayor Bill Mason, who helped organize the agreement between labor and the Legion.

"This is a symbolic act to show the public that we're done. We need to honor the past but get on to the future," said Mason. "Conflict between the American Legion and labor "came to an end today," he said.

"We've forgiven the Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese," Mason said. "Why can't we forgive people in the local area?"

Speaking to the crowd from the covered pagoda in Washington Park, one of the few Republicans at the Labor Day picnic paid tribute to the symbolism of the American Legion participating in a labor event.

"To see the American Legion and the union in the park together means very much to me," said state legislator Richard DeBolt, a Chehalis Republican. "Things have changed. We're a team working together. Our strength comes from unity."

Crowds had thinned considerably by late afternoon, when a group of union faithful sang songs around the Fords Prairie grave of Wesley Everest, the only union member to die in the 1919 slayings.

"My experience with Wesley has changed my life," said John Baker, owner of the cemetery where Everest is buried. "It made me aware of the kind of raw deals working people have gotten through all time, especially the last 50 or 60 years."

With jobs going overseas to lower-paid workers, unions are still a vital part of life around the world, Baker said.

"Wesley should be a patron saint" of the labor movement, he added.

Everest's grave is marked by an Industrial Workers of the World headstone and a new marble military stone Baker requested. Some stories say Everest was a worker in the Army's spruce logging division who refused to salute the flag, but Baker strongly disputes this claim.

He says Everest fought in Europe. The only surviving picture of Everest shows him in a military uniform.

Centralian Jim Smith opened the memorial by singing a song he composed about the 1919 tragedy, with a chorus of "now a lonely sentry guards their sleeping."

Others in the group, some of whom have closely studied the events of 1919 for decades, told stories about their experiences trying to learn about the killings in a town where discussion was discouraged through the 1960's and '70's.

The event is now out in the open, but the facts may never be fully known.

All agree that Everest and a handful of other members of the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, were in their union hall on North Tower during a veterans parade on Nov. 11, 1919.

Some say the IWW members shot at the marching veterans; others say the vets had rushed the hall to rout out the unwanted radical labor activists.

The Wobblies fired their guns; by the end of the day four of the veterans were dead by IWW bullets and a bloody, beaten Everest was in the city jail as a mob threatened further violence against the Wobblies.

Later that night electricity to the downtown was cut. Everest was hauled from his jail cell and lynched. His killers were never caught; many believe some of the leading members of the town were in the lynch mob.

As the union's Labor Day commemoration wound down, Smith sang a song written by Washington folk singer Linda Allen further exploring Everest's fate.

"We wondered if his troubled soul still wanders this old town; the day we sang Wes Everest down."

Vance Lelli, president of the Pierce County Labor Council then led the group in a rendition of "Solidarity Forever," set to the music of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The song's chorus, "solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong" is the message Guenther takes from Centralia's tragedy of 1919.

"We're fighting our future worker's rights, sticking together for wages, hours and working conditions," Guenther said. "We need to honor what they fought for to bring us up by our bootstraps to get the eight hour workday."

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
Group Health nurses succeed in averting birthing unit closure

Service Employees International Union District 1199NW distributed the following press release late Friday night:

Group Health Eastside Childbirth RNs Win Major Victory Settlement Averts Closure of Childbirth Unit

SEATTLE -- Group Health registered nurses today reached an agreement with Group Health management that averts the permanent closure of the Family Childbirth Center at Eastside Hospital in Redmond. Group Health had previously announced that it planned a final shutdown of the unit next week.

"Group Health nurses stood together to say that caregivers and patients need to have a voice about the future of health care services in their community. This settlement will help make that happen," said Diane Sosne, RN, president of Service Employees International Union District 1199NW. Group Health RNs worked through their union to take action and file the lawsuit on Wednesday.

Under the terms of the settlement, Group Health has backed away from its plan to permanently close the unit. It must open negotiations with nurses about the future of childbirth services for Group Health patients east of Lake Washington.

Federal District Judge Robert S. Lasnik was minutes away from opening a hearing on the nurses' lawsuit when the settlement was reached. Lasnik offered to allow nurses to reopen their legal action on an expedited basis if Group Health does not live up to the terms of the settlement.

Group Health RNs founded District 1199NW of SEIU in 1983. Since then, more than 10,000 Washington nurses and health care workers have united together in SEIU 1199NW.