MONDAY, AUGUST 6  ▪  Labor 2008: The battle begins -- At the 2007 Battleground States Conference in Chicago, the AFL-CIO lays out the strategy to win in the 2008 elections and to improve life for millions of working families.

Also:  ▪  AFL-CIO presidential candidate forum tomorrow (at AFLCIO.org) -- Hosted by Keith Olbermann, it will be broadcast live on MSNBC from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Pacific.
▪  In today's News Tribune -- State's donors love Obama -- Barack Obama leads all presidential candidates in Washington state fundraising by far.
▪  In today's Des Moines Register -- Edwards: It's time to boost labor -- The former senator calls the organized labor movement as "the single best anti-poverty movement in history."
▪  In today's Olympian -- No backup if Rossi decides not to run, GOP says -- Some speculate that if Rossi says no, Rep. Dave Reichert could drop his re-election campaign and go for governor. But state party boss and Rossi pal Luke Esser says there's is no chance of that happening.

Local news:  
▪  At the Olympia Dispatch blog -- State Labor Council grades the Legislature 
▪  In Sunday's Seattle Times -- One thing missing in jobs boom: High pay -- More Washingtonians are working than ever before, the state unemployment rate hovers near a 30-year low, and last year the state's average wage rose 5.3%. But those measures don't tell the whole story: An analysis of state jobs data shows that most of the new jobs don't pay all that well, and fewer high-wage jobs have been generated than during the late-1990s boom.
▪  In the PS Business Journal -- Nurse shortage tactics: changes in education -- The Health Work Force Institute calls for changes to nursing education to help students for whom traditional education is not a good fit and to recruit more immigrants and people of color into the profession.
▪  In Sunday's Seattle P-I -- Hundreds march to protest Regence premium increases -- About 500 march downtown, demanding universal health care and condemning Regence's latest rate hikes.
▪  In the PS Business Journal -- Eyeing the latest idea from Eyman (column) -- The thought of taking each fee increase to a vote of the Legislature spins I-960 into a bureaucratic nightmare.
▪  In the Kitsap Sun -- Kitsap County needs to cut 29 positions to balance budget, director says -- Commissioners aim to preserve law-and-justice positions, forcing greater cuts elsewhere.
▪  In the Olympian -- Capital Medical Center announces layoffs; union questions staffing -- The hospital declines to say how many, but 11 members of the UFCW 21 lost their jobs Friday.
▪  In today's Salem (Ore.) S-J -- Gay couples still restricted by Oregon PERS rules -- Only married couples can remove a beneficiaries, during a formal divorce. Gay "ex"-es retain survivor's rights.

Transportation news:
▪  In Sunday's News Tribune -- Bridge disaster: It could happen here (editorial) -- Two state bridges -- the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Highway 520 bridge over Lake Washington -- carry heavy traffic and are perilously vulnerable to collapse. And others are at least worrisome.
▪  In Sunday's Everett Herald -- New urgency to replace our most perilous spans (editorial) -- Keeping bridges safe, and replacing them, is expensive. But we surely can't afford the alternative.

Immigration news:
▪  In today's NY Times -- Surge in immigration laws -- Legislatures considered 1,404 measures this year and enacted 170 of them, an unprecedented surge in state-level lawmaking on the issue.
▪  In today's Washington Post -- A less ambitious approach to immigration (op-ed by Sen. Specter) -- It would be refreshing if Congress, and the country, could come together in a bipartisan way to at least partially solve one of the big domestic issues of the day.

National news: 
▪  At AFL-CIO Now -- House moves to defund anti-worker NSPS -- With an amendment to Defense appropriations legislation, the U.S. House last night moved to defund the anti-worker National Security Personnel System civil service policy. IFPTE President Greg Junemann calls it a “huge step in the right direction toward bringing fairness back” to Defense Department employees.
▪  From AP -- Northwest pilots OK flight hours; pacts aims to stop end-of-month cancellations
▪  From AP -- Bloggers seeking to form a labor union -- A loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers is trying to band together to form a labor union it hopes will help members receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.
▪  In today's Seattle P-I -- "A grand coalition:" Teamsters, techies link arms (Connelly column) -- The union is in the role of a suitor to the new high-tech "Net roots" wing of the Democratic Party.
▪  From Reuters -- Bad bosses get promoted, not punished? -- How do people get ahead in the workplace? One way seems to be by making their subordinates miserable, says a new study.

Last Throes update: 
▪  In Sunday's NY Times -- Patriots who love their troops to death (Frank Rick column) -- The ranks of unreconstructed Iraq hawks are thinner than they used to be. But those who remain dug in are are busily lashing out and rewriting history. Most seem more interested in saving their own reputations than the American troops they ritualistically invoke to bludgeon the wars' critics and to parade their own self-congratulatory patriotism.... Hiding behind the troops is the last refuge of this war's sponsors, who have more often dishonored the troops than the war's opponents.
▪  Of the 3,670 U.S. troops killed in Iraq; 3,531 of them have died since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and an end to major combat operations in May 2003; 3,209 have died since the capture of Saddam; and 2,811 have died since the government was handed over to the Iraqis.
▪  The WSLC's affiliated unions have called for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.