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.

FRIDAY,  APRIL 4

Democracy Now! Special: Martin Luther King’s Life and Legacy 40 Years After His Assassination

Tanker News:

• Boeing Official: Air Force Manipulated Tanker Deal  -- NPR -- When the Air Force picked Northrop Grumman and its European partner EADS over Boeing to build refueling planes, controversy erupted. Now Boeing is trying to get the Government Accountability Office to overturn the contract. 

Local News:

• State fines Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital -- Columbian -- A state agency has fined Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital $255,800 for failing to protect workers from exposure to a hazardous chemical, allegations the hospital denies.
•  State rejects builder's ferry bid  --Everett Herald -- Washington State Ferries on Thursday rejected the sole bid to build a new vehicle ferry and pledged to try again with what could be a less expensive project. Ferry officials turned down a $26 million bid from Todd Pacific Shipyards to build a 50- vehicle ferry using the Steilacoom II design. Todd said it needed roughly $9 million more than state engineers estimated as the cost for the new boat.
• State antes up to train students for jobs in trades -- Seattle Times -- Gov. Christine Gregoire last week signed legislation calling for the first overhaul in 20 years of the state's Career and Technical Education (CTE) program. The bill retools high-school training programs to ensure students can move easily to industry apprenticeships and programs at technical and community colleges. It includes $100 million to modernize and expand the state's network of skill centers, the regional campuses where high-school students explore jobs such as aerospace manufacturing and computer networking. About $9 million will go toward a new health-careers facility that will serve seven Eastside school districts in partnership with Lake Washington Technical College.
• Construction interest built from ground up -- Columbian --  Nutter Corporation and the Portland-based Northwest College of Construction ginned up an uncertain experiment: They would invite students for the week, morning until early afternoon, in hopes of wooing prospective workers. “The Department of Labor has been telling us for five years that there’s going to be a shortage of construction workers,” Nutter Corporation spokeswoman Lisa Schmidt said. The students observed the county’s improvement project on St. Johns Road to extend the two-lane road to four lanes and two bike lanes. Wednesday’s lesson focused on heavy equipment and pipe-laying.
• Ford Awards Mulally $21.7 Million as Shares Fall 10% -- Bloomberg -- Under Mulally, Ford's loss shrank to $2.72 billion from $12.6 billion in 2006. The company is cutting jobs and closing plants in a bid to return to profitability next year. Mulally is concentrating on reviving Ford's North American unit, its biggest and the main source of losses.
• Concrete-equipment supplier to build $10 million facility in Ridgefield -- Everett Herald -- About 25 employees would report to the new site for a variety of jobs — from truck drivers and laborers to draftsmen and sales associates — all part of the company’s concrete forming and shoring division.
• Whistle-blowing laws out in Eastman case -- Seattle PI -- A King County Superior Court judge told jurors who are deliberating the fate of Gerald Eastman, a former Boeing quality assurance inspector, that whistle-blowing laws should not be considered.
• PSE fined more than $1 million for altered records -- Seattle PI -- The Utilities and Transportation Commission said there were 209 violations in which PSE's subcontractor, Pilchuck Contractors Inc. of Kirkland, falsified and altered safety maintenance records. The violations turned up in an audit of records from January 2002 to December 2005.ficials
• Steel mill gets approval to increase production -- Seattle PI -- Nucor Corp. has received approval from environmental regulators to increase production at its West Seattle steel mill, which could lead to adding a 20-employee shift there.
• Pacific Steel to double staff size -- Yakima Herald -- A Montana steel and recycling firm will be expanding its Yakima location, doubling the num-ber of people it employs. 
• Black Rock Reservoir too costly, groups say -- Spokesman Review  -- Two influential Yakima River Basin groups have called on Congress to consider less expensive alternatives to the proposed Black Rock reservoir, dealing a blow to the $6.7 billion plan to build a massive dam east of Yakima.
• Unionizing will have positive safety effect -- Tacoma News Tribune letter -- Sweden-based Securitas tried to scare Tacoma readers into thinking that the sky is falling. But in fact, if security guards at the Maersk terminal located at the port of Tacoma join the ILWU, public safety will be affected – for the better. The employer untruthfully claimed, “if the longshore union went on strike, then – in this case – the port would be unguarded.” That’s not true, and Securitas knows it.

Political and Legislative:

AFL-CIO Congressional Records Available click here for more

• Washington stumbles toward landmark paid family leave --Cross Cut --  It's a glass-half-full or half-empty kind of a story: A year ago, Washington became only the second state in the nation to legislate paid family leave. This year, legislators failed to provide the program with a permanent funding source, but their budget did give it an administrative home and start-up funding of $6.2 million. Now it's likely New Jersey will pass Washington by, becoming the second state (after California) to implement paid family leave — and a more generous program than Washington's at that.
• Would Rossi have signed flood relief bill? -- Postman on Politics -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi has criticized Gov. Chris Gregoire's plans for flood control projects in Lewis and other southwest counties hit by last year's floods. But as Brad Shannon writes at his Olympian blog, it is not clear what Rossi would have done with the flood bill signed by the governor. His spokeswoman Jill Strait declined to say which way Rossi would have gone today, and Rossi was unavailable to comment himself — because his schedule didn’t allow. He was “tied up,” Strait said by telephone.
• Burner, Gregoire gaining strength -- Northwest Progressive  --  Congressional Quarterly has just released a new brief outlining the changing dynamics of two top races in Washington State (the 2008 gubernatorial and 8th District contests). The title of the brief speaks for itself: "Democrats Gaining Strength in Washington State". Here's a summary:

  Gov. Christine Gregoire and 8th District candidate Darcy Burner came within a razor‑thin edge of their opponents in their last contests. But analysts now say that the Democrats have upped their chancing of winning as the state GOP party faces structural problems and GOP efforts to appeal to the state’s large number of moderate voters has been hampered by their strong conservative base.

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.

   

• McCain: Union Members Are Right, I’m Just Like Bush -- AFL-CIO Blog -- Apparently, he’s noticed that he’s gotten the attention of workers. And he thinks we may just have a point: He says his administration will be pretty much a third term for Bush. While his public image is that of a “maverick” and a moderate, the truth is quite different, and when he’s speaking to a reactionary audience, he’s quick to reassure them that he’s no different from the disastrous current administration.

• Key McCain advisors were lobbyists for shady lender -- NY Daily News -- When Sen. John McCain addressed the nation's burgeoning mortgage mess last week, he insisted it was time for a little "straight talk." "I will not play election-year politics with the housing crisis," the GOP presidential hopeful insisted while unveiling his plan, which many have since described as friendlier to the mortgage industry than the Democrats' proposals. What McCain did not say - which some believe smacks of politics - is that two of his top advisers were recently lobbyists for a notorious lender in the mortgage meltdown.

• McCain's Purple Cow -- The Atlantic Monthly -- With all the recent focus on earmarks and disclosure in the presidential campaign, it’s worth returning for a moment to the lobbyist scandal John McCain survived en route to becoming the Republican nominee. Most media coverage focused on The New York Times’ implication of a sexual affair between McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. But the particulars of the business relationship McCain described as a defense of this relationship could still cause him trouble. Understood in their proper context, they add up to something quite different than the champion reformer McCain touts himself as being.

• Voodoo Health Economics -- Paul Krugman column -- Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan. ...It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics — not the supply-side voodoo that claims that cutting taxes increases revenues (though Mr. McCain says that, too), but the equally foolish claim, refuted by all available evidence, that the magic of the marketplace can produce cheap health care for everyone.

National News:

• 80,000 Jobs Cut in March; Unemployment Rate Rises -- NY Times -- Sharp downturns in the manufacturing and construction sectors led the decline, the biggest in five years. The Labor Department also said employers cut far more jobs in January and February than originally estimated.  There were fewer jobs in March than there had been five months earlier. In the last 50 years, whenever there has been an employment downturn like the one of the last few months, a recession has followed..
• 81% in Poll Say Nation Is on the Wrong Track -- NY Times -- In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002. Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
• Congress told FAA ignored safety violations  --Seattle PI -- Three longtime FAA inspectors testified that their agency allowed Southwest Airlines to fly uninspected planes, and that the airline continued to fly the planes even after it later found cracks in some of them. The inspectors said that when they complained, their bosses threatened their jobs and discouraged them from pursuing safety problems.
• Dems juggle needs in $286 billion farm bill-- SF Gate -- Democratic lawmakers are struggling to finance billions of dollars in automatic payments to grain and soybean farmers during a record commodity boom - and add another multibillion-dollar "permanent disaster" program for Great Plains farmers plowing highly erodible land - while at the same time providing promised money for nutrition, conservation and California fruit and vegetable growers in a $286 billion farm bill.

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.

• As Paychecks Stall, Drug Costs Go Up -- AFL-CIO -- Having health insurance no longer necessarily means that you can afford the medicines you need to stay healthy. According to a new report, people with health insurance are having more trouble paying for prescription drugs as insurers push more of the drug costs onto workers, at the same time the economic recession is stretching family budgets. A survey by the National Patient Advocate Foundation, which helps people pay medical bills, found 31 percent of the nearly 45,000 people it assisted last year said drug co-payments were their top medical-debt problem.

The War:

• More Than 1,000 in Iraq’s Forces Quit Basra Fight -- NY Times -- The desertions in the heat of a major battle cast fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the American-trained Iraqi security forces. The White House has conditioned further withdrawals of American troops on the readiness of the Iraqi military and police. The crisis created by the desertions and other problems with the Basra operation was serious enough that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki hastily began funneling some 10,000 recruits from local Shiite tribes into his armed forces. That move has already generated anger among Sunni tribesmen whom Mr. Maliki has been much less eager to recruit despite their cooperation with the government in its fight against Sunni insurgents and criminal gangs.

World News:

• Nike plant in Vietnam still closed -- AP --   More than 20,000 Vietnamese workers at a Taiwanese-owned factory that makes sneakers for Nike did not go back to work and the plant remained closed yesterday for fears that the strike would continue, officials and workers said.   On Tuesday, the company agreed to increase monthly wages by 100,000 dong ($6) in a settlement between workers representatives and management at the Ching Luh plant.

Need To Know:

• Clue to early Americans lies in origin of the feces -- Seattle Times -- Hold the potty humor, please, but archaeologists digging in a dusty cave in Oregon have unearthed fossilized feces that appear to be the oldest biological evidence of humans in North America. The ancient poop dates back 14,300 years. If the results hold up, that means the continent was populated more than 1,000 years before the so-called Clovis culture, long believed to be the first Americans.

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.