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.

THURSDAY, MAY 8

2008 COPE Convention -- Endorsements for State-wide Candidates

The WSLC COPE convention was  held last weekend and the delegate body unanimously endorsed Governor Christine Gregoire to  continue in her second term as our Governor. 

Other key endorsements included John Ladenburg as candidate for State Attorney General and Darcy Burner in the race for the 8th Congressional District seat against incumbent Dave Reichert. 

Visit our Political Education page to view a complete list of our endorsed candidates for the 2008 state races.

Read Rick Bender's statement about the WSLC endorsement of Governor Chris Gregoire

The 2008 Legislative Report is available now on our website. 

Click here for a PDF Version.

Meanwhile... 

The Tanker Deal is still in play as we count down to the verdict on the appeal of the Air Force's decision to send our jobs and national security overseas. Click here or scroll down to read more from the Machinists. 

Boeing KC-767 Tanker: Less Risk for Warfighters, Taxpayers  --ST. LOUIS, April 24, 2008 -- The Boeing [NYSE: BA] KC-767 would be a lower-risk aerial refueling tanker for the American military and taxpayers than the Airbus A330-based KC-30, and it would be superior in the areas of cost, production, schedule and capability. An analysis of the evaluation that led to the choice of the tanker proposed by the team of Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) reveals that numerous irregularities in the process resulted in a higher-risk, higher-cost aircraft being selected. Those irregularities form the basis of a protest Boeing filed with the Government Accountability Office following the contract award announced on Feb. 29.

Help Provide Relief to Burmese Workers -- AFL-CIO -- With more than 22,000 people reported dead and as many as 1 million homeless after a tropical cyclone that struck Burma over the weekend, the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB) has issued an urgent plea to the global union movement for aid in launching rescue, relief and rehabilitation work for victims of the storm. FTUB, a partner of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, plans to use relief fund contributions to distribute clothing, medicine, and non-perishable food for displaced workers and their families, build temporary shelters and assist in providing needed counseling and health clinics. Click here to contribute to help Burmese workers.

If you are a working woman, are you worried about finding a job that pays your bills and provides benefits? Or concerned about the rising cost of health care? Maybe you’re frustrated you can’t find time to do your job and spend time with your family. Or are you tired of working as hard as your male counterparts and not getting paid as much? 

The AFL-CIO and Working America’s just-launched online 2008 Ask a Working Woman survey enables you to share workplace concerns about issues such as equal pay and stronger family and medical leave laws. Click here to take the survey and here to share it with other working women.

Local News:

• The state celebrates Construction Safety Day on May 14 -- Tacoma News Tribune-- To honor the first Construction Safety Day, the Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Advisory Board and the state Department of Labor & Industries are joining together to host a gathering and series of workshops on May 14th at the Puyallup fairgrounds. Employers, supervisors and workers are invited to attend – for a conference fee of $50, which includes coffee, lunch and a prize drawing. Among the topics under discussion, look for ergonomic solutions, best safe practices, fall protection awareness, construction liability, the application of new standards and crane demonstrations. The program starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m. For more information, visit wagovconf.org/constsafetyday.htm or call 360-902-5446 or 360-902-5415.
• Two utilities reached different conclusions-- Daily World -- Offered the option of teaming up to be part of a new $100 million biomass generator that would burn wood waste, Tacoma Power decided against it. ...The Grays Harbor PUD has been working with California-based Evergreen Pulp and may invest as much as $27 million to take over a similar wood waste burning generator at the Cosmopolis Pulp Mill. Grays Harbor PUD leaders believe the risk is well calculated, the sale of the power will be profitable and that ratepayers want to see the mothballed Cosi Mill and its family-wage jobs revived. 
• 15.5 fewer teachers in Aberdeen next year  -- Daily World -- The Aberdeen School District is likely to have 15.5 fewer teaching positions next year as salary and benefits costs skyrocket and enrollment drops lower than any time in the past decade, the School Board learned Tuesday night.
• Put Your Food Donations Out Saturday to Stamp Out Hunger -- AFL-CIO Blog -- On Saturday, May 10, the day before Mother’s Day, you can help stamp out hunger with a few easy steps: Collect some nonperishable food items. Go to your mailbox and drop them off outside. That’s it. Your letter carrier will pick up your donation as part of the 16th annual food drive sponsored by the Letter Carriers (NALC).
• Postal workers gear up for food drive -- Bellingham Herald -- The food bank has had a dramatic increase in client visits this year, and rising food prices are most likely contributing to the increased need for help, Cohen said. April saw more than 8,000 visits — the most in the food bank’s history, Cohen said. January, February and March also set records, with more than 7,000 visits each month.
• Murray Requests $64 Million for State’s Flood-Damaged Roads -- The Chronicle -- U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has requested $64 million in road repair funds for Washington state, including for Lewis County roads and statewide federally owned land damaged in the 2006 Cowlitz River flood and the 2007 Chehalis River event. Murray, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, included the request in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill designed mainly for war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Vancouver teachers slam state schools chief -- Columbian -- Add the Vancouver Public Schools teachers union to the growing list of educators who have denounced the leadership of Terry Bergeson, state schools superintendent. At its monthly meeting on Monday, the Vancouver Education Association leadership council issued a strongly worded no-confidence vote, based on a survey of more than 300 Vancouver teachers.
• A plea bargain douses the scandal of the Thirtymile Fire  -- Cross Cut --U.S. Forest Service officials can exhale, finally. Ellreese Daniels' plea bargain in Spokane last week means there will be no U.S. District Court replay of one of the worst days in the agency's history, when four young firefighters died in the Thirtymile Fire, in the canyon of the Chewuch River, northeast of Winthrop, Wash.

• Airbus still ahead of Boeing in both jet orders and deliveries -- Everett Herald --  The Chicago-based Boeing finds itself outpaced by Airbus in terms of jet deliveries so far this year. Airbus has handed over 162 aircraft to customers, compared with the 155 jets delivered by Boeing.

• Boeing's Poseidon sub hunter for Navy brings commercial, defense sides together -- Seattle Times -- On an assembly line inside Boeing's Renton plant, machinists are putting together a special 737. The underbelly has a cavernous bomb bay for torpedoes and launching tubes for sonar listening buoys. Missile pylons protrude from its wings. Military antennas bristle on the surface of its nearly windowless fuselage.

Political and Legislative:

AFL-CIO Congressional Records Available click here for more

• Newt Gingrich and Allan Crow on the implications of Louisiana -- Atlanta Journal Constitution -- On Saturday, Don Cazayoux became Louisiana’s newest Democratic congressman, wresting a seat that had been in Republican hands for 33 years. In Washington and elsewhere, the defeat wiped off whatever smiles the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton fight has been putting on Republican faces. The Louisiana result came on the heels of the Republican loss of former Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat in Illinois, which had been held by the GOP — with a single two-year exception — for 74 years. That has Newt Gingrich calling for marked change of course for Republicans “or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.” 

• Battista Jumps NLRB Ship, Joins Union-Busting Firm -- AFL-CIO Blog -- For the past seven years, Bush administration appointees have carried out a war on workers, pursuing a corporate agenda that favored the wealthy over working people. Many of the anti-worker NLRB rulings came under the watch of Robert Battista, the board’s former chairman, whom Bush renominated to lead the board for another term....Battista told a U.S. House-Senate joint hearing in December he doesn’t believe the primary purpose of the National Labor Relations Act is to promote collective bargaining. Now he can put that belief into practice out in the open. He asked Bush to withdraw his nomination as NLRB chairman and joined the notorious union-busting firm Littler Mendelson.

• Dems in 17th District want two candidates on ballot -- Columbian -- Democrats in the 17th Legislative District don’t want to get burned again. That’s why they are considering defying a directive from state Democratic Chairman Dwight Pelz, who has ordered all  legislative district central committees with two or more candidates to “nominate” one by May 23 — three months before the Washington “top two”  primary. 

• Indiana's voter-ID law hits nuns, college kids -- LA Times -- A dozen nuns and an unknown number of students were turned away from polls Tuesday in the first use of Indiana's stringent voter-ID law since it was upheld last week by the U.S. Supreme Court. The nuns, all residents of a retirement home at Saint Mary's Convent near Notre Dame, were denied ballots by a fellow sister and poll worker because the women, in their 80s and 90s, did not have valid Indiana photo-ID cards.

• Hankins says she's retiring at end of term -- Tri-Cities Herald -- She also criticized Washington Republicans for their lack of a strategy to tackle the state's problems.The Republicans don't have a plan" she said. "There is not a plan to proceed and get this state on track. "Hankins, known as a feisty moderate who has waged many battles within her own caucus, will step down in January after having served a combined 24 years in the Legislature over two separate tenures.

• Business owners critical of state lawmakers -- Tri-Cities Herald -- A proposed heat-stress rule that requires business owners to monitor temperature, in addition to providing their outdoor workers water and access to shaded rest areas or misting stations, will add to business costs, Dilley said. It's like government telling people how they should run a business, he said. 

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. 

   

• Michigan AFL-CIO says it will blast McCain on trade, economy -- MLive -- A Michigan labor organization plans to use a two-day visit by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to tell voters his policies would hurt workers. "John McCain ... will not likely have a government and an administration that does enough or cares enough about creating good-paying manufacturing jobs here in America," Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. Gaffney said the union will remind its members that McCain supports right-to-work laws and international trade agreements, wants to tax worker health care benefits and already has told Michigan workers that their lost jobs are unlikely to come back.
• What McCain expects from federal judges-- LA Times -- McCain pledged to nominate jurists who believe "there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power" and who are "faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States." Some Democratic leaders immediately denounced McCain's speech. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, accused McCain of pandering to the far right. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement that McCain voted for every one of President Bush's activist judges and said McCain "promises hundreds more just like them."
• Huffington on McCain: A Trojan Horse -- Huffington Post -- In Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution and Made Us All Less Safe, Huffington, editor of the popular Huffington Post blog, points out that after twice voting against making permanent Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, McCain now supports this boondoogle for the rich. Further, he moved from being a campaign finance reformer to a candidate whose campaign is run by lobbyists and who has flip-flopped from opposing torture to voting to allow water boarding.And as we’ve pointed out, McCain, like Bush, supports tax hikes on our health insurance, supports pay discrimination, backs bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and pushes economic policies to help millionaires, not working families.

National News:

• Labor Lobby Melee: Union Rivalry Gets Physical -- AlterNet -- Up to six busloads of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizers and members started a scrum inside the lobby of a hotel holding the Labor Notes Conference in Dearborn, Michigan, on April 12th. Labor Notes is a monthly progressive and union democracy journal. The SEIU group wanted to disrupt the banquet hall dinner where California Nurses Association (CNA) leaders, who SEIU accuses of busting an Ohio union drive, addressed 800 conference participants from various unions.
• Failure to Enforce U.S. Labor Laws Fuels Exploitation of Workers -- AFL-CIO Blog --The failure to enforce even weak U.S. labor laws has created an incentive for many employers to hire undocumented immigrant workers, several experts told a House committee earlier this week.

Health Care:

• Health-care costs hitting even those with insurance -- NY Times -- The economic slowdown has swelled the ranks of people without health insurance. But now it is also threatening millions of people who have insurance but find that the coverage is too limited or that they cannot afford their own share of medical costs. Even many of the 158 million people covered by employer health insurance are struggling to meet medical expenses that are much higher than they used to be — often because of some combination of higher premiums, less extensive coverage, and bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments.

Need To Know:

• Web peril where you least expect it -- Seattle PI -- Criminal attacks against major Web sites have grown so common that Internet users have no reliable way to know which sites are safe to visit, no matter how well-known those destinations are, security experts say. News of the latest attack comes from Finjan, an Israeli security firm, which is reporting that last month it found a large cache of information -- including confidential medical records, financial records and business e-mails -- sitting unprotected on a computer network server in Malaysia.

With less than two months remaining before the Government Accountability Office is set to rule on a formal objection filed by Boeing, opponents of the U.S. Air Force’s decision to award a $40 billion tanker contract to Airbus and Northrop Grumman are stepping up the pressure.
Boeing, which has been supplying tankers to the Air Force for nearly half a century, took out a full page ad in the Washington Post stressing the importance of experience and expertise in securing the tanker contract.

“Designing, building, certifying and delivering tanker aircraft and booms is a complex, high-risk process,” the ad states. “Boeing’s track record of superior management of complex military programs is unsurpassed.”

Union members, meanwhile, continue to flood lawmakers with petitions protesting the deal. You can send a message to Congress telling them “U.S. Forces Deserve U.S. Tankers” by clicking here.

Lawmakers also continue to remain active in their opposition. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), along with seven other Senators, recently sent a letter to President Bush questioning the decision.

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.