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.

WEDNESDAY,  APRIL 2

"And by the way, I'm still negotiating with myself ... And good Americans such
as yourself are trying to get me to negotiate with myself."

George W. Bush
March 29, 2001
White House press conference.

Tanker News:

• Northrop Grumman, Boeing still battling over plane contract -- Newsday -- Boeing and its supporters in Congress have charged that U.S. jobs would be sent to Europe, where EADS -- the parent of Airbus Industries -- has airplane-manufacturing factories. Northrop Grumman and Boeing have publicly traded blows since the contract was awarded, and Boeing protested the award to the Government Accountability Office.

Local News:

• Weyerhaeuser to shut down Saskatchewan mill -- AP -- Weyerhaeuser Co. says it will indefinitely shut down operations at its oriented strand board mill in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan by July. The wood products maker based in Federal Way, Wash. cited continuing challenges in the North American housing market when it announced the plan Wednesday, saying its goal is to balance supply with weakening demand. About 170 people work at the mill, which manufactures Weyerhaeuser's brand-name Structurwood panels, which are engineered for flooring, walls, roofing and other uses.
• Building group lobs the T-word at enviros -- Seattle PI -- Without a scintilla of evidence, the head of the Building Industry Association of Washington charges "enviros" with privately cheering on ELF as it burns homes and research facilities. "The older folks in the mainstream enviro groups silently applaud this new and novel approach: If you build it, we will burn it. It's the next natural step in the environmental movement," Brad Spears writes in BIAW's latest newsletter. A few pages later, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi is pictured beaming as he shakes hands with Spears. Rossi was speaking to a BIAW luncheon....Does Rossi agree with BIAW that terrorism is "the next natural step" for environmentalism? Will he bring the likes of Brad Spears and Mark Musser, BIAW's stormwater field representative, into state government?
• Puget Sound ports take steps toward cooperation -- Seattle PI -- The ports of Seattle and Tacoma held a joint commission meeting Tuesday to discuss how they can work together to further their transportation, security, environmental and business strategies. Not on the agenda: merging the seaports.
• Seattle could ban foam food boxes -- Seattle PI -- Seattle would ban foam food containers and impose a 20-cent fee on both paper and plastic grocery bags under a first-of-its kind proposal announced Wednesday morning. Restaurants would later be prohibited from using plastic containers unless they can be recycled or composted, under the plan to be unveiled by City Council President Richard Conlin and Mayor Greg Nickels.
• United cancels flights as 777s grounded for tests -- Reuters --  The disruption to United's service is the latest in a series of maintenance issues at U.S. airlines in the wake of a recent crackdown by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. United, owned by UAL Corp, said it discovered that certain tests on the 777 planes -- relating to the firing system on one of the five bottles in the cargo fire suppression system -- had not been performed.
•  Should retired chief of ferries get free rides? -- Everett Herald --  Retired state ferries chief Mike Anderson didn't request a lifetime pass of free fares, but a union to which he once belonged is fighting to get him one. The Ferry Agents, Supervisors and Project Administrators Association contends Anderson deserves the perk provided to current and retired members under terms of its labor contract.
• Next move on new ferry unclear -- Everett Herald -- State ferry officials are scrambling for options after a bid for a new 50-vehicle ferry came in $9 million higher than anticipated. 
  They are studying if it is possible to negotiate a lower price for the new boat, possibly through change orders. They are weighing whether to reject the bid and instead pursue building two to three larger ferries of the Island Home design, which carry about 75 vehicles.
• Declines in manufacturing, construction fuel worries -- AP -- Further weakness in the manufacturing sector and construction industry underscored concerns that the U.S. economy has fallen into recession, though most analysts believe a downturn will be mild and relatively short-lived. The Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday that manufacturing contracted for a second consecutive month in March as manufacturers grappled with weakening order books and rising prices for raw materials. 
• PenLight, union deal a sign of future dealings  --  Tacoma News Tribune -- NEGOTIATIONS on any kind of contract are rarely easy, but Peninsula Light Company and IBEW Local 483 successfully completed a three-year deal last week that both sides are proud of. The best news is, the agreement came prior to Monday’s expiration of the previous contract — and it was ratified on March 26.

Political and Legislative:

AFL-CIO Congressional Records Available click here for more

• Chopp, Chopp! The method in the speaker's maddening ways --Cross Cut --  A veteran poverty warrior from Fremont Nation, is generally thought to be not just the most powerful speaker in memory but the most powerful political figure in the state. Powerful enough to intimidate both the governor and the barons of the Legislature. He also moves in invisible ways, thus throwing media off his track. But now that the 2008 legislative session is over, some traces of his style and priorities are showing up. It's an unedifying picture of one man and inflexible rule, but also one where Chopp's core values of helping the poor motivate most of what he does.
• A departing swing-district Democrat takes a few swings -- Cross Cut  --  State Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor, is leaving the Legislature, having chaired the Judiciary Committee longer than anyone. She has many good memories and no regrets, but she wonders if Speaker Frank Chopp and other Democrats running the Capitol have lost their nerve.
• Gregoire approves tax rebate for poor -- Seattle Times -- Gov. Christine Gregoire on Tuesday gave final approval to a startup plan for the "Working Families" tax credit program, directing the state Revenue Department to assemble workers and infrastructure needed to administer the possible sales-tax rebates. If the Legislature finds a way to pay for the benefits, the state eventually will send rebate checks to low-wage Washingtonians who qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit.
• Gregoire signs toughest toy law in U.S. -- Seattle PI  -- After considering a veto of the Children's Safe Products Act because of worries that it would cause a broad ban on toys, Gregoire selectively nixed portions of the bill, keeping intact most of the restrictions on dangerous chemicals -- at least for now. The governor said she would convene an advisory group to review the proposed standards, timelines and testing requirements before the rules go into effect in July 2009.
• McDermott must pay $1 million in leak case -- Seattle PI -- McDermott called the court fight with Boehner "a long and costly battle," but said the million-dollar judgment was "a small price to pay in defense of so fundamental a principle, and freedom, as the First Amendment."Because of the protracted legal challenge, "the First Amendment is stronger today, and shielded by new case law that will buttress its capacity to protect the publication of truthful information on matters of public importance long into the future," McDermott said in a statement Tuesday. "Knowing this, I am proud of my role in defense of the First Amendment."
• Obama, Clinton woo unions in Pa. -- AP -- Sen. Barack Obama received endorsements Wednesday from a labor union and a Democratic superdelegate, as he tried to regain the presidential campaign momentum he enjoyed before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won two large states last month. The Illinois senator peeled off an affiliate of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has endorsed Clinton. The Philadelphia-based affiliate, the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, claims about 150,000 members nationwide.
• Clinton proposes plan to keep jobs in US -- AP -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is proposing billions of dollars a year Wednesday to keep jobs from being shipped abroad as she appealed to blue collar workers in Pennsylvania, the next big primary contest where she hopes to trim rival Barack Obama's lead. Obama seemed to ignore the former first lady, turning his political guns on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain to blast his stands on the Iraq war and the economy.

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.

• McCain forecloses early -- Seattle PI Opinion -- The theme for his mortgage speech last week was basically McCain to Homeowners: Drop Dead. It was, he said sternly, "not the duty of the government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly." The good news, he noted, was that out of 80 million American homeowners, only 4 million are in the tank, while everybody else is "working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets" the way Countrywide Financial intended them to.

• 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.

National News:

• Don't blame us for high prices, oil chiefs plead -- AP -High prices aren't our fault, oil industry executives told a skeptical Congress. Top executives of the country's five biggest oil companies said Tuesday they know record fuel prices are hurting people, but they argued it's not their fault and their huge profits are in line with other industries. 
• Truckers protest prices by pulling rigs off roads --AP -- Tons of freight idled across the country Tuesday as independent truckers pulled their rigs off the road while others slowed to a crawl on major highways in a loosely organized protest of high fuel prices. Using CB radios and trucking Web sites, some truckers called for a strike Tuesday to protest the high cost of diesel fuel, hoping the action might pressure President Bush to stabilize prices by using the nation's oil reserves.
• Mass. leads court case to force US vehicle emissions limits -- Boston Globe -- Led by Massachusetts, 17 states and more than a dozen environmental groups today filed a rarely-used legal petition in federal appeals court to try to force the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
•  Burger King Rallies Kick Off Student Labor Week of Action -- AFL-CIO -- College students from California to New York to Florida this week are raising their voices demanding justice for workers on campuses and in their communities. Yesterday, students at more than 20 universities rallied at Burger King restaurants where they delivered a strong message to the “exploitation king” that slavery in our nation’s tomato fields will not go unnoticed nor unchallenged.. 

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.

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.