THURSDAY, APRIL 26  ▪  May Day march for immigration reform Tuesday in Seattle

Worker Memorial Day news:
▪  In today's Olympian -- Labor & Industries honors 112 workers who died on the job in 2006 -- They were loggers, pipefitters, truck drivers, farmers, pilots and bricklayers — the type of working men and women who face risks on the job every day. (Learn more about Saturday's events.)
▪  In today's Bellingham Herald -- Event Saturday honors workers killed, injured on the job 

Legislative news:
▪  At Chris Mulick's Olympia Dispatch -- Sen. Delvin on the Sonics bill: "The votes were there" -- The Richland Republican thinks the proposal for the King County Events Center in Renton had enough support in both chambers, but leaders weren't willing to allow a vote: "I thought the deal was a pretty good deal. People in my district, unless they came over and went to a game, they don't have to pay for it."
▪  In today's Seattle Times -- Gov. "Doer" doesn't get her due (Balter column) -- Gregoire might not be the most popular person to occupy the governor's mansion. But so far, she is an effective go-getter with the gumption to get things done. Let the re-election contest begin.

Local news:
▪  In today's Everett Herald -- Boeing flies high on news; earnings, deliveries, 787 backlog are all up
▪  In today's Seattle Times -- Boeing's next job: A new 777? -- McNerney says an updated derivative of its Everett-built 777 may be introduced to fend off the challenge from Airbus' planned A350.
▪  In today's Yakima H-R -- Yakima city employee union (AFSCME) agrees to wage freeze for year -- Next year, they'll receive a 3% raise, and the year after that their raise will be between 2.5-3.5%.
▪  In today's Everett Herald -- Light rail deal could get line into Snohomish County -- Snohomish County taxes won't pay for work in King County, saving the money for a Mill Creek stop.
▪  At ShiftBreak.com -- Carpenters, mental health workers, stagehands and labor standards -- SEIU 1199NW's legislative victory for mental health workers; 8,000 attend Carpenters rally in Tacoma; IATSE 15 stagehands leaflet Qwest Field; Congress moves to put labor standards in trade deals. 

National news:
▪  In today's Washington Post -- Unions for a global economy (Meyerson column) -- Globalization's champions have attacked unions generally and the United Steelworkers in particular for what they claimed were the union's protectionist, parochial and generally retrograde stances. But with it's merger talks with two of Britain's largest unions to create not only the first transatlantic but the first genuinely multinational trade union, it turns out the USW is every bit as internationalist as they. Now the cheerleaders will have to answer, are they really for globalization, or just the return to the laissez-faire, enrich-the-rich world that existed before the New Deal?
▪  In today's NY Times -- A unified voice argues the case for U.S. manufacturing -- Manufacturing companies have formed an unusual alliance with the United Steelworkers, aiming to preserve and promote U.S. manufacturing. One of the first issues the group will address is how America has been hurt by the Chinese government’s currency manipulation and industry subsidies.
▪  In today's Spokesman-Review -- Our glass ceiling is still transparently unfair to women (Caldwell column) -- For women in the workplace, it never seems to be payback time. Despite years of public debate, and some real effort, women in the United States continue to earn less than men. Education, the great equalizer, has done little to eliminate the inequities.
▪  In today's Everett Herald -- Discrimination lives on in wide gender pay gap (editorial) 
▪  In today's NY Times -- Medicare's troubling prospects (editorial) -- In order to put the system on a sounder financial footing, the administration and Congress will have to propose solutions under rules that are perversely skewed to rule out the most progressive financing.
▪  In today's NY Times -- Justices raise doubts on campaign finance -- The new majority may view more expansively the Constitution’s protection of political messages as free speech, and invite a flood of advertising paid for by corporations and unions as the '08 elections move into high gear.
▪  In today's LA Times -- The way out of another Southern California grocery strike (op-ed) -- Both sides will lose if the supermarket chains and the unions continue their tough-guy posturing.

Last throes update:
▪  In today's LA Times -- Iraq refuses to provide civilian casualty reports to U.N. -- Numbers from government employees indicate that 5,509 died in Baghdad in the first three months of 2007.
▪  In today's NY Times -- War bill passes U.S. House, requiring Iraq pullout -- The House votes 218-208 to pass a measure that sought the removal of most combat forces by next spring. Mr. Bush has said unequivocally and repeatedly that he will veto it. VOTING YES: Inslee, Larsen, Baird, Dicks, McDermott and Smith. VOTING NO: Reichert, McMorris Rodgers and Hastings.
▪  Today from AP -- Senate expected to pass Iraq troop pullout bill today -- The bill is on track to arrive on the president's desk on Tuesday, the four-year anniversary of Bush's announcement -- in front of a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln -- that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.
▪  Of the 3,335 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far, 3,196 have died (see a list) since President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and an end to major combat operations in May 2003; 2,874 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. 
▪  In today's Seattle P-I -- Iraq war: Tell us the truth (editorial) -- Whatever paper-thin shred of credibility the Bush administration had regarding the Iraq war is fast disappearing. It's not just the mistakes and mishandling of vital matters (say, national security). It's the lies it smears upon other lies, laying it on so thick it's practically choking itself.