Legislative news:
▪  In today's Seattle Times -- Aerospace tax break may rest on union neutrality -- A powerful group of Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills in the House and Senate that would tie new strings to a multi-billion-dollar aerospace tax-incentive package approved four years ago. Labor leaders are pushing the legislation, which would bar aerospace companies from collecting hundreds of millions in state tax breaks unless they agree to remain neutral toward union-organizing efforts.
▪  In today's News Tribune -- Business (lobbyists) vs. worker in family leave bill -- Workers could get paid leave to stay home and bond with a new baby or care for a sick parent, under a proposed bill before the Legislature that would create a family and medical leave insurance program.
▪  In The Olympian's blog -- Retired Public Employees Council in Olympia -- About 60 folks from across the state lobby for their issues. No. 1 on their list was keeping pension gain sharing.

Local news:
▪  In today's Olympian -- Washington teachers likely to come up short in Supreme Court (column)
▪  In today's News Tribune -- State's rate of job growth in 2006 was double the national average
▪  In today's Tri-City Herald -- Ste. Michelle wineries (with unionized farm workers) break profit record

U.S. Minimum Wage news:
▪  In today's NY Times -- U.S. Senate to consider minimum wage bill with business tax breaks --The Senate bill includes $8.3 billion in tax breaks for small businesses. The House bill, which passed 315 to 116, with 82 Republicans joining the Democrats, included none of those tax breaks. And Democratic leaders there have said they want to hold out for that kind of “clean” bill.
▪  In today's Washington Post -- Maverick Costco CEO joins push to raise minimum wage -- Says Jim Sinegal: "The more people make, the better lives they're going to have and the better consumers they're going to be. It's going to provide better jobs and better wages."
▪  At the Working Families e-Activist Network -- Tell Congress: Pass a clean minimum wage bill 

Other national news:
▪  In today's NY Times -- As airlines surge, pilots want share -- With airlines returning to profitability, pilots are demanding to recoup some of the pay and other benefits they gave up in recent years.
▪  Today from AP -- Sen. Clinton meets with UFCW board -- The UFCW backs Wake Up Wal-Mart, which pressures the retailer to boost its workers' wages and benefits. Clinton served on Wal-Mart's board from 1986 to 1992 but has since become a critic of its business practices.
▪  In today's Washington Post -- Bush order limits agencies' "guidance" -- On Jan. 18, when the headlines focused on the war in Iraq, the new Democratic Congress and actress Lindsay Lohan's alcohol problem, the Bush administration rewrote the book on federal regulation.
▪  In today's NY Times -- New York labor leader Dennis Rivera is parting, with a shot -- He is leaving to become chairman of a new national health care union being established within the SEIU.

Last Throes update:
▪  In today's Seattle P-I -- 44-year-old Army Reservist from Yakima killed in Iraq -- Maj. Alan Johnson, a 26-year citizen-soldier employed in civilian life as a shift sergeant with the Yakima County Corrections Department, was killed by a roadside bomb in Muqdadiyah.
▪  In today's Wash. Post -- Soldier's death strengthens Senators' anti-war resolve -- An Army captain named Brian Freeman cornered Sens. Christopher Dodd and John Kerry at a Baghdad helicopter landing zone. The war was going badly, he told them. Troops were stretched so thin they were doing tasks they never dreamed of, let alone trained for. Freeman, 31, took a short holiday leave to see his 14-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son, returned to his base in Karbala, Iraq, and less than two weeks ago died in a hail of bullets and grenades.
▪  Of the 3,080 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far, 2,941 have died (see a list) since President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and an end to major combat operations on May 2003; 2,570 have died since Saddam's capture. Five-and-a-half years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is at large.
▪  The WSLC's affiliated unions have called for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.