FRIDAY, JULY 6  ▪  Send us your union's event announcements

Strike news:
▪  In yesterday's Oregonian -- Freightliner workers together in strike -- The Machinists' two-day-old strike against Freightliner is about mandatory overtime and health benefits for retirees. But workers say the message is much larger: Weary of concessions and losing jobs to plants elsewhere in the U.S. and Mexico, they have decided to make a stand.
▪  In today's Oregonian -- Are strikes increasing, or just unease? -- First it was drywallers. Then beer truck drivers. Now, truck-making machinists. Metro-area ambulance drivers could be next.

787 Rollout on Sunday:
▪  In today's Everett Herald -- Crafting Dreamliner keeps Boeing engineers hopping -- On Sunday, the roughly 20,000 SPEEA engineers and technical workers in the Puget Sound region will get to see the product of their labors when Boeing rolls out its new 787 Dreamliner.
▪  In today's LA Times -- Boeing bets that 787 has right stuff -- With the fanfare of a royal wedding and Tom Brokaw serving as the emcee, Boeing will lift the veil Sunday on its first new passenger jet in more than a decade, ushering in what some analysts believe will be a new era in air travel.

Local news:
▪  In today's Seattle Times -- A too-generous state (editorial) -- This year's raises are a done deal. But next year, with the pressure off and state employees happy, the Legislature should inject some scrutiny into the collective-bargaining law. It should require a separate vote on all contracts. And it should start increasing the percentage of health-insurance premiums paid by employees.
▪  In today's Olympian -- A "no-confidence" vote for parks chief -- The 116-88 vote is a public rebuke of agency director Rex Derr, the first such action taken by the WFSE in almost a decade.
▪  In today's Olympian -- Rep. Smith seeks aid for workers who lose jobs overseas -- The trade adjustment assistance program offers income support and training for manufacturing workers who lose their jobs due to international trade. Smith wants to expand it to cover service workers.
▪  In the Seattle P-I -- AFTRA ends claim against KOMO/TV 4 -- The union withdraws unfair labor practice charges over management's firing of three veteran news reporters in May.
▪  In the Columbian -- Blaming red ink, Southwest Washington Medical Center to cut 100 jobs 
▪  In the Seattle P-I -- Eyman's I-960 should be invalidated (op-ed) -- If Eyman truly wants to protect taxpayers, he should welcome legal scrutiny. If I-960 is invalid and cannot become law, surely we should not waste tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on it.

Immigration news:
▪  In today's Olympian -- Immigration initiative comes up short -- I-966 would have required verifying the citizenship status of anyone seeking public benefits not mandated by federal law.
▪  In today's NY Times -- Suit planned over visas for highly skilled -- Immigration lawyers plan a class-action lawsuit against the feds for refusing to accept thousands of applications for work-based permanent visas from workers who were encouraged by the government to apply.
▪  In the News Tribune -- Immigration issues push Microsoft to build Vancouver, B.C., center (brief)

Trade news:
▪  In today's Seattle P-I -- NAFTA-style free trade policy fails (op-ed by SPEEA's Stan Sorscher) -- In the past 20 years, we got WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA and many smaller agreements. Although free trade advocates promised shared prosperity and mutual gains, our actual experience has been an astronomical trade deficit, the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs, the steady de-industrialization of our economy, stagnant wage growth, and growing income inequality. Workers in Latin America and other countries similarly failed to enjoy promised rewards.
▪  In today's Wash. Post -- Same old protectionism (editorial) -- The Democrats' partisan embrace of rationalizations served up by labor is not "a new day in trade policy." It's protectionism as usual.

Election 2008: 
▪  At AFL-CIO Now -- Candidates call for policies to help rebuild middle class -- Biden, Edwards and Kucinich say that the key is to make it easier for people to join unions
▪  From AP -- Income level gaps too large, poll says -- About seven in 10 say discrepancies between income levels are too large, and most say the government should provide jobs and training for those having a tough time.
▪  In today's NY Times -- 2008 candidates vow to overhaul health care -- Though their approaches are very different, candidates in both parties promise to overhaul the system and cover more -- if not all -- of the 44.8 million uninsured.
▪  In today's Seattle P-I -- Obama tells teachers merit pay should be on table -- He says pay should rise across the board, but there should be fair ways of measuring and paying for performance.