WSLC Reports Today
Updated DAILY... Almost Every Day™ 

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.

TUESDAY,  APRIL 1

Local News:

• Police back patrolling airport -- Yakima Herald -- "There are some contract language issues but we've worked that out," said Officer Rich Fowler, a negotiator for the Yakima Police Patrolmen's Association. "It's a good opportunity for guys in the union."
• Caught up in land deal, 200 to lose homes  -- Everett Herald -- More than 200 people who live in former military duplexes south of Paine Field are being evicted from their homes at the end of June to make way for a new business that promises to bring hundreds of jobs. Residents of Fairmount Park Housing received 90-day eviction notices, hand-delivered last week by Housing Authority of Snohomish County employees.
• Port should be questioned on plans for profit from shipment -- Olympian --  Last fall’s military shipment of equipment from Iraq netted the Port of Olympia almost $1 million. Deduct expenses and the port’s profit is likely to be about $400,000 — about 40 percent of the revenue earned by the port’s marine terminal last year.
• Community Transit to add 23 double-decker buses to fleet -- Everett Herald -- The agency’s ridership is increasing, agency CEO Joyce Eleanor said. “People are exploring their commute options, and we’re doing our best to make transit attractive,” she said. private company'
• Viaduct advisory committee considers transit, public policy  -- West Seattle Herald -- The Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders Advisory Committee focused on the next two building blocks toward a solution for the central waterfront structure: transit and public policy. Victor Obeso from King County presented on transit improvements, and Bonnie Nelson of Nelson-Nygaard talked about policies, management and land use - both strategies that can reduce traffic using whatever new structure replaces the central waterfront portion of the viaduct.
• State's 'enhanced' driver's license accepted by the feds --  West Seattle Herald -- Washington is the first state in the nation to develop driver's license/identification card that can be used in lieu of a passport under Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requirements. Several other states and Canadian provinces are modeling Washington's license program. 
  "Driving into Canada is a way of life for many Washington residents," said Liz Luce, the state licensing director. "This new program makes travel faster and easier for our citizens, while supporting necessary security and economic growth on both sides of the border."
• Sikhs file rights complaint -- Vancouver Sun -- Two turbaned Sikhs have filed a human rights complaint against International Forest Products, saying a new hard hat policy is preventing them from returning to their jobs at a Delta sawmill. "Both of these guys are both long, long-term forestry employee workers and this is the first time this has ever happened," Perry said. "It is actually worse than it would be for other workplaces because when you think about the history of Punjabi pioneers coming here, forestry was one of the few industries that they could get into."
• Boeing announces deal with Iraq for 40 planes -- Everett Herald -- Boeing and the Iraqi government have signed a purchase agreement for 30 Next-Generation 737s and 10 787 Dreamliners, according to Boeing's Web site. KIRO-TV reported that the order may be worth more than $3 billion at list price.
• Boeing leaks 'for the greater good,' Eastman said -- Seattle PI -- Eastman, accused of 16 counts of computer trespass, testified Monday that he had met with Seattle Times reporter Dominic Gates, and had shown him portions of documents that Boeing views as sensitive. But the quality assurance inspector said he did so only to highlight what he calls corruption at Boeing.
  

  Tune in: Telemundo Spotlights Construction Worker Safety --  TONIGHT -- Tuesday -- Telemundo’s hit telenovela “Pecados Ajenos” will spotlight construction worker safety.  The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) worked with the show’s writers and producers to help develop a storyline that has real life impact on the Latino community. CPWR’s latest edition of the Construction Chart Book (available online beginning tomorrow, see more information below) reports Hispanic construction workers are killed on the job more frequently than non-Hispanic workers and when injured, they receive far less in workers’ compensation.

Political and Legislative:

AFL-CIO Congressional Records Available click here for more

• Fooling Aside, Congress Is Back in Session -- LA Times -- A test vote comes today when the Senate moves to take up legislation that would grant bankruptcy judges more authority to modify mortgages, provide $200 million for mortgage counseling, authorize state housing agencies to float revenue bonds for the purchase of homes in foreclosure and allow homebuilders to write off more losses from their taxes.
• Jim Jacks starts engine in run to represent 49th District -- Columbian --  Democrat Jim Jacks, Gov. Chris Gregoire’s liaison with the public in Southwest Washington until two weeks ago, will run for the 49th District legislative seat being vacated by Rep. Bill Fromhold.
• Washington State Debates Strict Bill on Child Products -- NY Times -- Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington is expected to sign a measure on Tuesday that would give the state some of the toughest rules in the nation restricting toxic materials used in children’s products, though it was unclear just how broad the measure would be.
•  Gregoire signs bills on gangs, vehicle tolls for 520 Bridge -- Seattle PI -- Gov. Chris Gregoire, responding to chronic gang problems across Washington, approved state assistance Monday for local enforcement agencies in preventing and combating street crime. The governor also approved use of tolls to help finance a new $4 billion floating bridge across Lake Washington.

McCain Myth Busters: 

• The AFL-CIO has put up a new website - McCain Revealed, a campaign to tell the real story about Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican nominee for president. McCain has built a media-friendly reputation as a “maverick” and moderate. But there’s nothing moderate about McCain, a loyal ally of Bush who has consistently and perniciously voted against the interests of working families in his decades-long career in Washington.

   

  The AFL-CIO's new McCain Revealed website features an interactive McCain briefing book that answers the questions we need to know before we go to the polls, including where he stands on the economy, jobs, health care, trade, workers’ rights, retirement security and the Bush administration. click here for more or just go directly to the site.

• Diebold software error reveals John McCain to win Nov. 4 election -- LA Times -- Release of the preset presidential election results months prematurely could become a serious embarrassment to the company whose expensive and allegedly unreliable electronic voting machines have been so controversial in some places. "We really don't know how this happened," a company spokesman told The Ticket, "but we stress that all the congressional election outcomes are still sealed. So there's still some mystery. And we're asking the news media to suppress the presidential news results in order to maintain the national political suspense for another seven months.".

• John McCain and American Voters -- DNC -- John McCain's campaign has said that McCain is "the American president Americans have been waiting for." But the truth is McCain's shifting positions and political opportunism have hurt him with voters, who see him as out of touch on issues like health care, the economy, and the war in Iraq.

Regional News:

• Local AFL-CIO regains control year after takeover by national-- Rocky Mountain News -- "We've pulled back together and we're moving on," said Mike Cerbo, who was hired as executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO after national trustees took control of the state office's daily operations and removed its president and secretary-treasurer from their posts. The national office appointed Washington labor leader Rick Bender to serve as the state federation's trustee, he concluded that both of the officers needed to be removed to keep member unions from defecting.

• Forestry job losses key issue in union campaign -- Vancouver Sun -- The unions representing forest workers and public employees are urging people in British Columbia's forest-dependent towns to demand greater response from Victoria and Ottawa in the face of a jobs exodus that they say will get worse before it gets better. Steve Hunt, regional director of the United Steel Workers, and Barry O'Neill, president of CUPE BC are touring the province's resource towns because that's where the job losses are being felt the most in the wake of sawmill closures.
  

National News:

• Union head moves to oust West Coast dissident -- SF Chronicle -- Andy Stern, president of the Washington-headquartered Service Employees International Union, sent a letter on Monday - obtained by The Chronicle - that alleges misconduct by Sal Rosselli, president of the Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers West, who has been Stern's most vocal critic.  The battle between Stern and Rosselli is being closely watched by all of SEIU's 600,000 California members and could have long-term effects on how the labor movement organizes, elects its leaders and negotiates contracts nationwide. It also could have a seismic impact in the health care industry, where Rosselli's union remains a potent political and economic force.
• OSHA goes easy: After meeting with employer only, it often reverses findings, cuts fines -- Las Vegas Sun-- An  examination of OSHA accident documents related to nine recent construction fatalities on the Strip shows that investigators found serious safety violations in the cases, but the agency often did not follow up with aggressive enforcement. Instead, after meeting privately with contractors, the agency withdrew or reduced fines....Government and private safety experts outside of Nevada as well as the families of the accident victims told the Sun they are surprised and disturbed by OSHA’s conduct after the fatalities....Frank Strasheim, a former regional administrator in the federal OSHA office in San Francisco, and other experts say they have seen many citations removed by federal and state OSHA offices elsewhere — but rarely in cases involving deaths.
• Airlines may lose $1B due to steep gas costs -- Detroit News -- Under current estimates, airlines are looking at a troubling year that threatens to deplete the hefty financial reserves carriers like Northwest Airlines Corp. have built up in recent quarters. "We found that all the airlines would survive 2008 but cash levels would be at alarming levels for a majority of carriers if current trends continue through 2009,"
• Supreme Court to Review Idaho Law on Union Paycheck Deductions -- Education Week -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to review an Idaho state law that bars school districts and other local government agencies from making deductions from union members' paychecks for the unions' political activities. The law was challenged by the Idaho Education Association, its Pocatello local affiliate, and other public-employee unions in the state. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled unanimously in October 2007 that the provision as applied to local government employers violates the First Amendment free-speech rights of the unions.
• Court questions California on unions -- Forbes -- Supreme Court justices questioned Wednesday whether a state should be able to prohibit employers from using state money to influence employees' views on unions in their workplace. The Chamber of Commerce and the Bush administration argue that California is trying to silence employers from weighing in on union organization efforts. They say that position isn't permitted by federal labor law, which allows employers to be involved as long as they don't threaten reprisals.
• United mechanics switch to Teamsters -- Chicago Business -- Mechanics at United Airlines voted by a wide margin to replace their union with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The two-year effort to unseat the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn. (AMFA) culminated in a vote of 4,113 to 2,631, the Teamsters union announced. AMFA had displaced the longtime mechanics union at United, the International Assn. of Machinists, less than five years ago.
• UAW lost 73,500 members in 2007 -- Detroit News -- "The UAW may finally have stemmed the bleeding," said Harley Shaiken, a professor of labor studies at the University of California at Berkeley. "But clearly no union was going to be able to withstand the implosion of the domestic auto industry without heavy losses in membership."
• Construction Spending Falls in February--AP --  Analysts believe that housing will keep falling until a record glut of unsold homes is reduced. That effort is being hindered by the fact that mortgage defaults have soared to record levels, reflecting the abuses that occurred in lending activity at the height of the housing boom. The weakness in housing is combining with soaring energy prices and a severe credit crunch to push the economy close to a recession.
• Rules to be waived for border fence -- AP -- Invoking the legal waivers - which Congress authorized - would cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently stand in the way of the Homeland Security Department building 267 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to officials familiar with the plan. The move would be the biggest use of legal waivers since the administration started building the fence.
• Congress Has Big Questions for Big Oil -- AP -- "These companies are defending billions of federal subsidies ... while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone," complained Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., in previewing the hearing. The lawmakers were scheduled to hear from top executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, which together earned about $123 billion last year because of soaring oil and gasoline prices.
• Housing secretary quits, leaves behind criminal inquiry -- AP -- HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson stood at the intersection of a criminal investigation and a housing industry in chaos, so on Monday he took a step that people who rise from modest means to great success hate most: He quit. He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Housing and Urban Development Department toward Republican contractors and cronies.
• Wal-Mart told to drop ad claim -- AP -- The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus singled out what it called implied claims in the retailer's ads that consumers who shop at Wal-Mart can realize that much in savings while people who shop elsewhere do not.
• Cost-cutting, layoffs may save Dell $3 billion, company reports -- Tacoma News Tribune --  Dell Inc. also is reaffirming its plan – announced last year – to cut at least 8,800 jobs, or about 10 percent of its work force. In the last nine months of fiscal 2008, the Round Rock, Texas-based company cut 3,200 jobs. The company plans a broad range of cost cuts in design, manufacturing and logistics, materials and more.

Health Care:

• Food for Your Children or Medicine You Need. What Would You Choose? --  AFL-CIO Blog -- The AFL-CIO 2008 Health Care for America survey is now available. More than 26,000 women and men, insured and uninsured, young and old, union and nonunion took the comprehensive survey, while nearly 7,500 took the time to write about their personal health care experiences. The overwhelming majority, 95 percent, say the health care system needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.

• Approving medicines shouldn't be a rush job -- Everett Herald Opinion --  What do Americans get in addition to paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? The real possibility that if the expensive prescription drug was approved on deadline, it just may cause safety problems down the line. Like what happened with the drugs Vioxx, Bextra, Rezulin and Baycol -- all taken off the market.

• As Jobs Disappear, So Does Health Insurance --AFL-CIO Blog  -- A big part of the American Dream is based on the premise that if you work hard, you can provide for yourself and your family. But in today’s economy, good jobs are disappearing. To survive, America’s workers are forced to take low-paying jobs that rarely offer health care or retirement security—and that’s not right, says Constance, a 59-year-old single woman from Illinois. If you work in the United States, you should be able to do more than just scrape by.
• Years before Medicare can be tough to find insurance -- Everett Herald --Kent Odell is having trouble getting individual health insurance. Kaiser Permanente rejected Odell for coverage because he used to smoke, even though he quit 16 years ago. But he thinks the denial has more to do with a number over which he has no control: his age.
• County OKs Agreement to Offer Discount Drug Card -- Kitsap Sun -- A prescription drug discount program the county announced participation in last week appears to work at most pharmacies in the county, and it could be ready for taxpayers as soon as this summer. The prescription drug cards wouldn't replace an insurance plan, but they could help cut costs of some medicine by enrolling Kitsap residents in the corporate partnership.

War News: 

• Al-Qaeda Recruiting Western-Looking Operatives --The Onion -- Central Intelligence Director Michael Hayden said on Meet The Press that al-Qaeda was training operatives who "look Western" in order to pass undetected.

World News:

• Workers Strike at Nike Contract Factory -- NY Times -- More than 20,000 Vietnamese workers have walked off the job at a Taiwanese-owned plant that makes shoes for Nike Inc., demanding higher pay to keep pace with skyrocketing prices, officials said Tuesday. The workers at Ching Luh plant, in southern Long An province, went on strike Monday. They want a 20 percent bump to their $59 average monthly salaries along with better lunches at the company cafeteria, said Nguyen Van Thua, an official with the province's trade union.

Do you want to know how Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) voted on a move to repeal the federal minimum wage?

Are you interested in Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) vote on a measure to rein in the soaring cost of prescription drugs for seniors and working families?

How about finding out where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) stood on a bill that would restore the freedom of airport screeners to join a union?

Or maybe you just want to know if your U.S. House member voted with working families last year?

All that information and more about your U.S. senators and representatives is just a click or two away in the AFL-CIO's final 2007 House and Senate Voting Records. The congressional scorecards track 19 Senate votes and 24 House votes from the first session of the 110th Congress.

Workers Memorial Materials Available Online Now -- AFL-CIO Blog -- 

Each year, thousands of workers are killed on the job and millions more are injured or become ill because of their jobs.

This April 28, workers in the United States and around the world will honor those killed and injured on the job and call for improved workplace safety on Workers Memorial Day.

You can start planning and organizing a Workers Memorial Day event in your workplace or community with materials now available online from the AFL-CIO.