Local news:

 
►  In today's LA Times -- Union backers target Starbucks with new media campaign -- Critics use a website and social media to portray the coffee giant as anti-union. The company denies being a bad employer. (Check out StopStarbucks.com for more information. Also, see our Jan 6. posting, "EFCA poster boy: Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz." 

►  In today's Tri-City Herald -- Increase in vit plant accidents worries DOE -- Bechtel says most of the recent incidents have been caused by complacency or losing focus on safety, rather than a lack of good safety procedures or correct equipment for the plant's 800 construction workers.

►  In yesterday's Bellingham Herald -- Kremen: Whatcom County will furlough employees -- The county executive will ask county employees to take an 80-hour unpaid furlough, and will continue a hiring freeze through 2010 in order to save an estimated $8.8 million.

►  In yesterday's News Tribune -- Up to 100 Tacoma school jobs at risk -- Though they’re not ruling out layoffs of support staff, officials hope reductions can be accommodated through attrition.

►  In today's Spokesman-Review-- Ledbetter preaches equal pay in lecture at EWU -- “It’s not just the Lilly Ledbetter story,” she says. “It does not belong to Democrats or Republicans. This is a civil rights matter.” But it took a Democrat-controlled Congress to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was the first act of Congress signed by President Obama when he took office.

News from Olympia: 

►  From AP -- Washington gets $672M in stimulus funds -- Gov. Gregoire says the federal money is now available, and that the state would be able to apply for an additional $331 million in the fall. She says it will help reduce school class sizes and provide training for educators, among other things. Higher education will also receive some of the stimulus money.

►  In the Olympian -- A balanced approach to payday lending problems (editorial) -- Lawmakers have not totally solved the problem, but they have taken a step forward by setting tighter restrictions and will collect information so they can revisit the issue. That’s a reasonable approach.

►  Meanwhile in Oregon -- Democrats outline plan to tax the rich -- The proposal, which sets a higher tax bracket for high-income earners, was cast as an effort to bring more fairness to Oregon's tax code and a way to help balance a state budget that has been whacked by the recession. Republicans said the higher tax rates would hit small-business owners hard and prompt an exodus to Clark County, where there is no income tax. 

National news:

►  From Bloomberg -- AFL-CIO's finances masked by creative accounting, official says -- The AFL-CIO used “creative accounting” to disguise “a crippling cash-flow situation” heading into last year’s election campaign, says IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. Net assets of the 11 million-member AFL-CIO declined to a negative $2.3 million as of June 30, 2008, from a $66 million surplus on July 1, 2000. “A new leadership -- leaders chosen by our members, leaders help accountable by our members -- is needed,” wrote Buffenbarger, who is a member of the AFL-CIO’s finance committee and the president of one of the nation’s largest unions.

►  In today's Washington Post -- To UAW leaders, the pain is necessary -- GM's roughly 60,000 factory workers are voting on a deal that gives the union a stake in GM of 17.5% that could grow to 20%, smaller than workers had hoped. It also includes cuts in some health-care benefits and the loss of cost-of-living increases, performance bonuses and some holiday pay.

►  In today's Washington Post -- Obama's anti-Roberts (E.J. Dionne column) -- Even though they should support her confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, liberals would be foolish to embrace Sonia Sotomayor as one of their own because her record is clearly that of a moderate. It is highly unlikely that she will push the court to the left. Indeed, on many issues of concern to business, she is likely to make the Chamber of Commerce perfectly happy.

►  In BusinessWeek -- Sotomayor: A moderate on business issues -- On discrimination in employment, Sotomayor has probably sided more with employees than employers, but has been "balanced overall," says one corporate legal analyst.

►  In today's NY Times -- For Republicans, court fight risks losing Hispanics to woo conservatives -- Obama's selection of Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court puts Republicans in a bind, forcing them to weigh the cost of aggressively opposing the first Hispanic named to the court. 

►  At AFL-CIO Now -- IBEW training program prepares for green future -- The IBEW is working with electrical union contractors to create a comprehensive green jobs training program that weaves practical experience with classroom instruction into the union’s apprenticeship programs.