WSLC Reports Today -- June 22, 2006

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WSLC Reports Today
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Links are functional at date of posting, but sometimes expire. Some links require free registration. WSLC Reports Today links to stories of interest to organized labor; some positive, some negative. The intention is to inform.

THURSDAY, JUNE 22 ▪ Friday in Seattle, thank Inslee for his victory on illegal NSPS
▪ At AFL-CIO Now -- Defense Dept. workers win another round against Bush administration
▪ In today's Wash. Post -- Bill sends strong message on workplace rules (column) -- The amendment clearly sent a message to the Bush administration. Two years ago, a similar Inslee amendment lost on a vote of 218 to 202. This time, no House member spoke up on behalf of the NSPS.

WAR... What Is It Good For?
▪ In today's NY Times -- GOP decides to embrace war as political issue -- Their strategy might yet be upended by more problems in Iraq, like new reports about two U.S. servicemen who were abducted, tortured and killed. Polls show a majority of Americans still think that entering Iraq was a mistake, and independent voters are particularly open to the idea of setting a timetable for withdrawal, the very policy Democrats have embraced and Republicans are now fighting.
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Iraq war: No smiley faces (editorial) -- Grim reality has peeled off the smiley face President Bush tried to stick on the Iraq war after the killing of insurgent leader al-Zarqawi.
▪ In today's News Tribune -- War made Iraq the front line on terrorism (Goodman column) -- By no stretch of Dick Cheney’s imagination was Iraq a front line on the war on terror. But it is now. Are we now sending sons, daughters, husbands, wives to be the designated terrorist attractions?

Estate Tax news:
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Timber teaser for estate tax cut (editorial) -- What do Republican leaders do when they're having trouble selling a big tax cut for the nation's wealthiest families? Why, they propose another tax cut, this one for large corporations (hoping to sway Cantwell and Murray).
▪ In today's Washington Post -- Undead tax cutters (editorial) -- Estate tax abolitionists have included unrelated tax breaks for timber interests as a bribe for the two wavering Democratic senators from Washington state, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. The nation is grappling with rising inequality. Its prized social mobility may be threatened if the richest members of society are allowed to pass unlimited riches to their children. Given these circumstances, the Republican zeal for eviscerating the estate tax is mystifying. We trust that the two Washington senators, and other wavering Democrats, won't be the enablers of this error.
▪ A related story in today's Washington Post -- U.S. losing its middle-class neighborhoods -- Long regarded as incubators for the American dream, middle-class neighborhoods are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself.

Minimum Wage news:
▪ Today from AP -- Senate Republicans block minimum wage increase -- The 52-46 vote is eight short of the 60 needed. (See statements from Cantwell and Murray, both of whom voted "yes.")
▪ In today's Spokesman-Review -- Maximum disregard for minimum wage (column) -- A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. It's time for Congress to stop their luxury raises for themselves, and raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

Political news: ▪ KEEP LEAFLETING! -- This week is the first of several scheduled worksite leafleting events across Washington state. WSLC affiliates are urged to download a two-sided flier -- comparing U.S. Senate candidates and State Supreme Court candidates, and distribute them to members this week. Learn more, or contact Field Mobilization Director Benjamin Lawver.
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Cantwell's lead over McGavick is nearly gone -- A new poll says dwindling voter support for Sen. Cantwell's re-election bid has put her in a statistical toss-up with her Republican opponent.

Local news:
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- With Bush ouster in mind, Seattle librarians go south -- Seattle Public Library employees have passed a resolution through their union calling for President Bush to resign or be impeached because of the Patriot Act, the Iraq war and a host of other issues.
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Tax policy rank that counts (editorial) -- Word of a state tax "surplus" will bring reflexive calls for tax cuts and bogus, out-of-date claims about our high taxes. The truth is, Washington residents pay less of their earnings in state and local taxes than folks in 28 other states and less than folks in 9 other Western states.
▪ In today's Oregonian -- Ex-governor Kitzhaber backs Oregon affordable health care initiative -- The ballot measure would amend the Oregon constitution to make affordable health care a right and require the Legislature to push toward universal access by mid-2009.

Immigration news:
▪ From AP -- With huge backlog, skilled workers stuck waiting for citizenship -- The immigration debate has focused on who should get a place in line for a legal life in the U.S. The real agony, says Boeing engineer Tien Bui, comes when you finally get in line. He's been in it since 2003.
▪ In today's News tribune -- On immigration, Republicans prefers politics to law (editorial) -- The U.S. Senate, House and presidency are all in Republican hands. They say illegal immigration has become grave national problem, even a crisis, and they are right. And yet they can’t produce a bill to address it, after watching the problem fester for years? What are we missing here?
▪ In today's NY Times -- The immigration road show (editorial) -- Americans deserve action on a good bill, and if this do-nothing Congress won't give it to them, they should elect a Congress that will.

Other national news:
▪ In today's NY Times -- Evelyn Dubrow, labor lobbyist, dies at 95 -- She was one of the most colorful and respected lobbyists in D.C., and one of the first powerful women among them.
▪ At AFLCIO.org -- "Evy Dubrow is the Union Label" -- She was so beloved and so persuasive she could open doors and win victories on Capitol Hill for working people when no one else could.
▪ Today from AP -- Cities pushing big-box stores on health care, higher wages -- Municipal living wage or big-box ordinances are being advanced in Chicago and elsewhere (like Spokane).

Earlier this week: MONDAY, 6/19 -- TUESDAY, 6/20 -- WEDNESDAY, 6/21
Last week: MONDAY, 6/12 -- TUESDAY, 6/13 -- WEDNESDAY, 6/14 -- THURSDAY, 6/15 -- FRIDAY, 6/16

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2006
Friday in Seattle, thank Rep. Inslee for victory on illegal NSPS

This week, the Defense Appropriations Bill was successfully amended by our own Rep. Jay Inslee (D-1st) to prohibit the Bush administration from spending any money on the portions of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) that have been ruled illegal in U.S. District Court. On Friday (tomorrow), Rep. Inslee will hold a press conference at 1:30 p.m. at the Seattle Labor Temple to discuss this important victory, and union activists are urged to come out in force -- with banners -- starting at 1 p.m. to thank Rep. Inslee and show solidarity with Department of Defense workers.

Congress previously authorized the DoD to experiment with the new NSPS personnel classification system to replace the civil service system. However, the Bush administration has exceeded its statutory authority and used the congressional mandate as an end-run around long-established collective bargaining and employee appeal rights. A U.S. District Court decision in February 2006 agreed that the NSPS exceeded statutory authority -- the "collective bargaining" section wasn't really collective bargaining and the employee appeals part of NSPS wasn't fair.

NSPS has been nothing more than a guise by the Bush administration to attack working families. Federal employees should not be treated as enemy combatants. The ultimate goal in the Bush administration’s war on working families is to strip all workers, both in the public and private sector, of their rights to unite and have a voice in the workplace.

As Washington Post columnist Stephen Barr points out today, "The amendment clearly sent a message to the Bush administration. Two years ago, a similar Inslee amendment lost on a vote of 218 to 202. This time, no House member spoke up on behalf of the NSPS."

But the AFL-CIO Now blog reminds us, this fight is far from over: "The appropriations bill must still win final House approval, and the Senate then must pass it. The amendment needs to survive a House-Senate conference and White House pressure to kill the pro-worker amendment."

Please plan on attending Friday's show of support for Rep. Inslee and opposition to the NSPS starting at 1 p.m. outside the Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 1st Ave. We'll see you there.

If you have news items regarding unions or workplace issues in Washington state that you would like to see posted here, please submit them via e-mail to David Groves or via fax to 206-285-5805.