Local news: 

►  In Sunday's Spokesman-Review -- Wages and means -- Jobs with great pay and excellent benefits can be hard to come by in a recession – but not necessarily at City Hall. The city of Spokane hasn’t stopped filling openings, and those lucky enough to land jobs will get solid pay with raises on the horizon, two taxpayer-funded retirement plans and premium health insurance. It’s a package that city officials have started to view as unsustainable.

►  In the PS Business Journal -- State, King and Snohomish County home builder groups in civil war -- The BIAW has threatened to block hundreds of thousands of dollars in "retro" money from its local affiliate, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, At issue is the MBA's resistance to the BIAW's fierce partisanship. BIAW has criticized Democrats who sponsored bills to cut or alter the retro program, dubbing such efforts “retro-bution” for BIAW’s campaigns. Now the MBA sees BIAW as using similar tactics against it.

►  In the Daily News -- Tracking stimulus plan's impact in Cowlitz County -- At least $44.1 million in stimulus funds has been set aside to be spent within the county's boundaries. That doesn’t include money in the form of tax cuts and increased unemployment benefits. In June alone, stimulus funds boosted unemployment checks by $300,000 for some 4,000 county residents.

►  In the Everett Herald -- Few Republicans are strong contenders against Sen. Murray in 2010 (Cornfield column) -- Add up Sen. Patty Murray's money, clout, vibes and President Barack Obama and the resulting challenge of keeping the incumbent from winning a fourth term is much too steep for the likes of Republicans Sean Salazar or Wayne Glover to scale. (Who?)

Boeing news: 

►  In the Seattle Times -- Boeing risks overplaying its hand with Southern strategy (Jon Talton column) -- It's healthy to run a little scared in today's economy as long as you don't run over the edge of a cliff or throw others off. That's the risk with the most strident comments about the bad-business climate here. It's mostly a myth. And, in addition to being divisive because much of it translates into blaming workers or programs that benefit them, it obscures the real competitive issues that face us. ... Unions are a whipping boy in the bad-business-climate myth. Funny, the world's largest exporter of manufactured goods is union-heavy Germany. And it stretches credulity to argue that four strikes over 20 years are anywhere near the competitive burden of the executive blunders that put the Dreamliner behind schedule.

►  At Crosscut -- Coping with a post-Boeing world -- "McBoeing" may be foolish enough to move a 787 line to S.C., so this region needs to be smart enough to look beyond the Boeing economy.

►  At HorsesAss.org -- Analyst: Boeing 787 "ghastly letdown" -- What say before our entire state’s political class goes on bended knee to Chicago, promising the sun, moon, stars and no unions, they take a good, hard look at Boeing? The people simply can’t afford any ill-considered and hasty offers to a company whose management has so clearly dug its own hole. It would be one thing if Boeing management had a good attitude, but in trying to blame unions for their woes they have revealed just how craven they really are.

►  In the PS Business Journal -- Time to mobilize (again) to keep Boeing here (op-ed by leaders of two business lobbying groups) -- Neither the international leadership of the Machinists union nor the very top leadership of Boeing has allegiance to Washington. They don’t live or work here. It is up to the union rank-and-file and the Boeing executive team here in Washington to convince those in charge on both sides that it is better to solve problems than abandon ship.

►  In the News Tribune -- Machinists' choice: Strikes or jobs (editorial) -- At a certain point, the overuse of strikes is self-defeating – and the machinists passed that point years ago. If the company eventually shifts its jet production elsewhere, its workers could be left with wonderful contracts promising great wages, medical insurance and retirement benefits. Just no jobs.

►  In Sunday's Everett Herald -- State must do more to keep aerospace jobs here (op-ed by Republican Sen. Mike Hewitt) -- Two of Boeing's top priorities are reducing their UI and workers' compensation costs. Yet this year the Legislature made virtually no progress on either of those fronts. (If this year's passage of UI tax cuts that will save Washington businesses hundreds of millions of dollars a year is "virtually" nothing for employers... why did we bother?) 

►  In the PS Business Journal -- Boeing-Machinists rift threatens region (editorial) -- We hope Boeing and the Machinists also consider the interests of the wider community when they sit down for their negotiations. Both sides need to come to the table with commitment to reach a deal.

Health care news: 

►  In today's Washington Post -- Lawmakers predict delay for health care reform plan -- Obama's overhaul of the health-care system is unlikely to be completed by the White House's August deadline, lawmakers say. Democrats and Republicans alike said the administration's sweeping health-care reform proposals are moving forward on Capitol Hill, but they cautioned against rushing into a spending plan that could cost trillions of dollars over the next decade.

►  In today's Yakima H-R -- Panel of experts to discuss health care reform -- In an event Wednesday keynoted by State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, five panelists will discuss "affordable health care" and take questions from the audience.

►  In today's WSJ -- Slump spreads to health care as Michigan loses auto jobs -- The sputtering Michigan economy is dragging down the state's once-strong health-care system, offering a preview of how a lingering recession could corrode Americans' hospitals, savings and health.

National news: 

►  In the Wash. Post -- Trumka hopes to mend AFL-CIO -- With his election as AFL-CIO president virtually ensured, the central question is whether Trumka can heal the rift that occurred four years ago when the SEIU and the Teamsters (among others) left the AFL-CIO to form Change to Win. One factor working in favor of reunification, Trumka said, is that 70% of the local unions whose national arm broke off from the AFL-CIO still affiliate with it locally. "The split never occurred at the grass-roots level, which is a good thing," he noted. 

►  At AFL-CIO Now -- 1,500 rally in Arkansas for Employee Free Choice Act -- Ministers, civil rights leaders and national union leaders joined union members in three cities across the state Saturday, then met in Little Rock, where a crowd of 1,500 braved 100-degree heat to march across the city. Richard Trumka said the fight for the freedom to form unions is a struggle for civil rights, and now is the right time for Arkansas elected officials to support that struggle.

►  In today's NY Times -- Injustice in the name of security (editorial) -- In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress rightly required new background checks for the nation’s 1.5 million port workers. Unfortunately, the checks, which became mandatory for all port workers this spring, rely on F.B.I. and state criminal records that are incomplete and out of date. The bad data has been catastrophic for port workers across the country. A new report finds the government has mistakenly denied credentials to tens of thousands of people. They have either lost their jobs while awaiting clearance or gone without paychecks for six or seven months until the denials were finally reversed on appeal. Congress can fix this problem by speeding up the approval process and requiring the F.B.I. to verify the accuracy of criminal records before issuing background reports. Learn more.

►  At CQPolitics.org -- Bonior: From Capitol Hill leader to labor organizer -- Since January, Bonior has convened nine meetings of the coordinating committee, a group that includes the top leadership of AFL-CIO, Change to Win and the nation’s largest independent union, the 3.2-million-member NEA. But the framework for an accord is still very much a work in progress.