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.

MONDAY,  APRIL 21

        "Thanks for the question, you little jerk." -- John McCain, after being asked by a high school student if he was too old to be president. For good measure, McCain then threatened to draft him. (Watch video clip)

Tanker Deal:

• Reversing Air Force tanker deal comes down to one GAO official -- Seattle PI -- The Boeing Co.'s push to overturn the Air Force decision awarding a Northrop Grumman/EADS consortium the lucrative aerial tanker contract rests on convincing Guy Pietrovito. Pietrovito, 54, a deputy assistant general counsel at the Government Accountability Office, is responsible for weighing Boeing's appeal of the Air Force tanker award.

Local News:

• Boeing faces fight with labor --Seattle Times  -- The top negotiator for The Boeing Co., Doug Kight, has an uphill battle ahead as the company undertakes difficult contract talks with both major unions this year. And one of his proposals - for enrolling new hires in a 401(k)-style retirement plan instead of the existing Boeing pension plan - won't make things any easier. Relations with the white-collar engineering union already are so strained that the union's new executive director, Ray Goforth, talks openly about the potential for a strike.
• Boeing's secret ecology weapon - its work force -- Puget Sound Business Journal -- Boeing plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent in five years...Boeing will be turning to the work force itself to find opportunities for cutting emissions, the same strategy the company is using for its "lean" program to increase manufacturing efficiency.
• Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war -- US Labor Against War -- dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers' Day, to call for an end to the war.
• State to solicit new bids on a 50-car ferry  -- Columbian -- The state ferry system expects this week to try again on a plan to quickly add a new small, car-carrying vessel to its fleet. 
  Before week's end, Washington State Ferries plans to again advertise for bids on a 50-car ferry based on the Steilacoom II design, Marta Coursey, communications director for the ferry system, said Friday.
• Plastic fruit bins useful yet highly flammable -- Yakima Herald --Nobody is suggesting packing houses stop using plastic bins. But the results of the test burn could lead to changes in rules about how far apart apple bins should be stacked. Insurance companies may rethink their regulations, too. ...burning plastic puts out a smoke that carries different toxins than wood, ... They include chlorine and phosgene gasses, both chemicals used as nerve agents during World War I....The fumes also could cause lung cancer and other respiratory problems...
• Are Harbor schools headed for a “Waterloo”? -- Aberdeen Daily World -- School districts around the Twin Harbors are reeling from the latest enrollment projections. Aberdeen expects to lose 100 students, Hoquiam about 80, Elma about 70, meaning each district faces losing hundreds of thousands dollars from the state at the same time mandated raises will force the districts to pay more for the staff they keep.
• Tank company still waiting to set up in Turbine Building -- Aberdeen Daily World --  Officials at the Satsop Development Park are still waiting for the county to approve an occupancy permit so that a steel tank manufacturing company can move into the WPPSS-era Turbine Building at the Fuller Hill business park....if things continue to drag on between Satsop and the county, he very well may just take his business and his 50 employees elsewhere.

Political and Legislative:

AFL-CIO Congressional Records Available click here for more

• New Poll in the Washington state gubernatorial race -- Horsesass -- SurveyUSA has just released a new poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 634 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire leading Dino Rossi 50% to 46%. The 4% spread is an improvement for Gregoire from the 1% spread in the early April SurveyUSA poll and the 1% spread in a late March Rassmussen poll.

• The Company You Keep --The Street Insider -- With Pennsylvania workers set to cast their votes in the presidential primary election tomorrow, thousands of workers signed a letter sent to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign today renewing its call for her to sever all ties with her campaign strategist Mark Penn. Penn's firm has a long and dishonorable record of working as union busters with corporations such as Cintas, a company notorious for suppressing workers rights. Workers are demanding that anti-worker and union busting consultants have no place at the table in any campaign seeking the support of America's workers.

• From yelling to insults, workplace aggression can take its toll on workers—and states are taking action -- Chicago Tribune -- A 2007 survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute in Washington found that 37 percent of American workers have been bullied at work, while 49 percent of adult Americans have either experienced or witnessed bullying at work. More than half of bullying involves public humiliation of targets, the survey found, while 32 percent of bullying occurs behind closed doors.

• Lawmaker works to get out word on college scholarships -- Columbian -- The College Bound scholarships paid for by the state Legislature should be a dream come true. After all, up to 56,000 seventh- or eighth-grade students who sign up by June 1 will be eligible to receive free college tuition and $500 for college books when they are ready for higher education. 
  But Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver, was concerned to find out that just 4,000 students have signed up so far. Students must meet certain criteria to qualify for the scholarship: They must pledge to maintain a 2.0 grade point average in high school, qualify for free or reduced lunch, and not commit a felony.
  

Regional:

• California nurses union gets restraining order against SEIU --LA Times -- The California Nurses Assn. on Wednesday secured a temporary restraining order against the Service Employees International Union, accusing it of harassing the board members of the Oakland-based group. The two influential nationwide unions have a long, acrimonious rivalry that reached a new height in March after they publicly battled over whether the SEIU should represent more than 8,000 nurses and other healthcare workers in Ohio.
• CA Independent contractor status scrutinized -- LA Times -- In California, the chances of getting busted are growing as the state cracks down on businesses that wrongly claim employees are independent contractors and, as a result, not subject to a slew of taxes and labor laws.

McCain Myth Busters: 

• Check out the latest on the AFL-CIO's website:

  McCain Revealed. There you will find 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.

   

  Click here to go to a page full of previously posted articles on John McCain. 

• Truth Vs. 'Trash Journalism': McCain's Weak Rebuttal to Damaging Allegations -- Alternet -- I just don't get where all the "outlandishness" and "hate" comes from on the McCain side. I am only a humble author trying to do my job, sharing facts that are 100% sourced. It's not like I included in my book the account of a former AP reporter who recounted to me seeing John McCain wander off into the Red Light District of Hanoi in 1996 when he was there to normalize relations with the Vietnamese. Or that it was known among reporters that he used to disappear into that part of town alone at night. I never said that in my book. And why would I? That would supposedly be "trash journalism."

National News:

• Big Labor Blames Glutton CEOs   -- The Motley Fool --  The AFL-CIO cast itself this week as a modern-day Robin Hood, taking from the rich and greedy ... and giving to the irresponsible and wrong-headed. Last week, the labor federation released its 2008 Executive Paywatch, a database that tracks executive pay for many of the country's largest companies. The officials urged support for legislation that both curtails excessive executive pay and provides aid to home foreclosure "victims."
• The Hidden Battle to Control the World's Food Supply -- Democracy NOW -- Food riots are breaking out across the planet. We must re-examine corporate control of the food supply. 
• The Ludlow Massacre -- Alternet -- Remember the parable about those ignoring history repeating it, particularly on April 20 -- the anniversary of the atrocity. ....A few years ago in Florida, labor leaders had to fight to remove language from a local government's administrative code that said "unions would not help workers, and the county would oppose unions by any lawful means," according to the Ft. Myers News-Press. California's state government has accelerated the outsourcing of public services to private contractors in order to avoid employing unionized workers -- even though the practice costs taxpayers more money. The governors of Missouri and Indiana have eliminated public employees' right to collectively bargain.
• Amid strong farm economy, some worry about increased debt -- AP -- Soaring land values, increasing debt and a reliance on government subsidies for ethanol production have prompted economists to warn that what some describe as a golden age of agriculture could come to a sudden end. At risk are the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, the health of hundreds of banks and the vitality of an agricultural industry that has been one of the nation's few economic bright spots in recent months.
• UAW chief unhappy with pace of American Axle talks -- AP -- The president of the United Auto Workers says he is optimistic that the union can settle several contracts disputes at General Motors Corp. factories. But Ron Gettelfinger wasn't as hopeful Saturday when it came to an eight-week strike at parts maker American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc.
• Lack of skilled workers will lead to fiscal crisis, experts say --  LA Times -- With baby boomers preparing to retire as the best educated and most skilled workforce in U.S. history, a growing chorus of demographers and labor experts is raising concerns that workers in California and the nation lack the critical skills needed to replace them. In particular, experts say, the immigrant workers needed to fill many of the boomer jobs lack the English-language skills and basic educational levels to do so.
• Sportswear workers face grueling conditions, long hours -- AFP -- Researchers for the Play Fair 2008 campaign found that the conditions for sportswear equipment makers had hardly improved since the 2004 Athens Olympics and that "substantial violations of worker rights are still the norm." In addition to "extreme pressure to meet production quotas," workers were often unpaid for long hours of overtime and were exposed to toxic chemicals as well as being bullied and harassed, the report said. Many sportswear workers' wages were not enough to get by on and employers found ways to get around increases in minimum wages and overtime limits, the researchers found.
• What happens when foreigners buy U.S. plants? Look at Holland, Greenville -- Michigan Live -- More than 200,000 Michigan residents worked for foreign companies as of 2005, according to government data. Yet in a state that has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, foreign investment has not been enough to compensate; indeed, it has sometimes exacerbated the erosion. 

Health Care:

• A new report by Families USA --  Dying For Coverage gives great stats on state of WA health care.

War News:

• Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand --NY Times --  The Pentagon information apparatus has used analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found. The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

World News:

• Lots Of Money Around But Little For the Displaced Forest Worker -- Opinion 250 -- What is so troubling about both the federal and provincial governments move in the collapse of the lumber industry in BC is the amount of help that is actually reaching the worker who is being displaced. Unless I have been reading from a different page, kindly show me where the man or woman being displaced in say for example Mackenzie, or Quesnel is being shown how to obtain extra financial help, be it EI, or any other program.
• Worker Walkouts at Deutsche Post Mean Empty Mailboxes -- Spiegel Online -- Workers in the major cities Duisburg, Wiesbaden and Hamburg temporarily stopped working in the first step of what could become the next major strike in Germany after massive disruptions in recent months to the national railway and public transportation in the federal capital Berlin.
• The fuel panic begins -- The Scotsman -- MOTORISTS laid siege to Scotland's forecourts yesterday, stockpiling against a feared fuel shortage as the country's only oil refinery continued a phased shutdown in the face of strike action. The chaos came as pension negotiations between unions and management at the Grangemouth refinery appeared to break down completely. The owner, Ineos, claimed Unite officials had refused to engage in talks – but the union insisted it was happy to do so at any time.

Democracy: The Cornerstone of Community

By Paul Lee

(Paul is a shop steward at OPEIU Local 8)

           Saturday April 5^th was the date that I discovered the power of democracy and why it is so integral to the formation of community. This year the 37^th Legislative District held their caucus at Cleveland High school , home of the fighting Eagles. The energy was high and people seemed enthusiastic. We heard from party notables and elected officials. Both Clinton and Obama supporters were out in force! But something happened that night that was truly transcendent.  

            It was about 4:30PM and all the festivities had ended, people had already given their speeches, and voted on their ballots. The janitors had arrived and cleared the chairs of the floor. We were instructed to make our way into the lunchroom and wait there for the final votes to be tallied. As time pressed on, we all became tired and anxious. Then suddenly, the caucus chair announces over the microphone that Pat Wright of the Total Experience Gospel Choir was going to share a couple of songs with us. I began to feel the spirit in the room begin to lift as everyone shared in singing some old time hymns. Following Pat were others that shared jokes with us, which also included Dawn Mason former State Representative from our district. Soon people were reciting poems and sharing stories, the kind that are usually reserved for the kitchen table. I don’t think it was just me that noticed what was beginning to happen. Others began talking about what a special experience this caucus process was becoming. By the time the votes were tallied, which was about 11PM I don’t think there was a person in that room that wanted to leave. We all wanted to share what had happened in the room and spread it out to our other neighbors and community.

             As I reflect on what I experienced that day, I realized that democracy is all about giving voice to each and every common man. Perhaps what draws me to the process is this notion that each person’s voice is regarded equally and that this empowers people to stand up and be heard.

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.