Food drive, clawbacks, Boeing-NLRB…

FOOD DRIVE TOMORROW! (SATURDAY)

►  At AFL-CIO Now — Help Letter Carriers ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ May 14 — You can help “Stamp Out Hunger” by joining with the Letter Carriers  in the largest one-day food drive in the nation. NALC asks that you collect canned goods and dry food, such as tuna, canned meat, soups, pasta, rice and cereal, and leave them in a bag or box by your mailbox on Saturday, May 14. (See The Stand’s report for more information.)

►  More coverage in today’s (Everett) Herald, (Longview) Daily News, Olympian, and Peninsula Daily News

LEGISLATIVE NEWS:

►  At SeattlePI.com — Bill: Don’t create jobs, give tax breaks back — With the state facing big budget shortfalls, some state lawmakers wonder whether the state should collect back taxes from companies getting exemptions that didn’t create jobs. Two “clawback” measures, SB 5922 and HB 2055, would allow the state to collect exempted tax amounts in cases where the benefiting companies don’t expand and hire as  promised.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see today’s column at The Stand by Sen. Maralyn Chase — If tax breaks don’t work, it’s clawback time

►  In today’s Kitsap Sun — Senate approves 25-cent surcharge on ferry tickets — The surcharge and fuel tax exemption have not been controversial, but ferry unions are unhappy with other provisions of the legislation. The revised bill would keep MEC as an appeals board within PERC, then eliminate MEC in 2013. While the unions are not happy with that move, they can live with it as a compromise. But the unions don’t like a provision of the bill that removes boat captains from their present union.

►  At TheOlympian.com — Eyman designing new tax handcuffs for 2012 — Eyman is testing and designing a tax-control measure for 2012 – one that would reaffirm last year’s I-1053, which reestablished the two-thirds vote requirement for tax hikes passed at the Capitol. I-1053 already is credited with blocking serious discussion about raising taxes or closing tax exemptions for select groups – such as banks or out-of-state shoppers.

LOCAL NEWS:

►  At The Slog — Arrested UW students continue with Sodexo protest — Roughly 60 students rallied again in continued protest of the university’s contract with Sodexo, an international food company that supplies concessions for UW’s athletic games. Students oppose the company, which they say has a long history of worker abuse, including union busting, harassment, and reported cases of forcing female workers to take pregnancy tests before being hired.

►  In today’s Yakima H-R — At least two dozen Yakima Valley teachers getting layoff notices — Many school districts throughout the Yakima Valley will be hand-delivering reduction-in-force notices to teachers today.

BOEING NEWS:

►  In The New Republic — Labor intensive — Forty or fifty years ago, these kinds of cases were common. Now, there are fewer of them—but not because companies are better-behaved. Ever since the Reagan administration, which crippled the NLRB, companies have been free to operate with impunity, moving plants or simply threatening to do so in order to quell organizing efforts. That’s why the NLRB’s complaint against Boeing, which might have gone unnoticed a generation ago, may be the most radical thing the Obama administration has done.

►  In The Hill — With Boeing suit, labor board become top GOP target — Move over, EPA and OSHA: The National Labor Relations Board has become the popular executive-branch target for Republicans.

►  In the Wall Street Journal — Boeing labor fight takes over Harkin hearing — Boeing’s top lawyer Michael Luttig says, “I do expect to lose” when the NLRB conducts its hearing on the matter June 14 in Seattle. He also expects to lose when Boeing appeals that decision. Luttig expects the case to go all the way to the Supreme Court, which could take several years.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m pretty sure that Lawyer Luttig — who says he’s underpaid at nearly $4 million a year — has every confidence that Boeing will finally prevail when the case lands before the SCOTUS. See the next link…

►  In today’s NY Times — Gutting class action (editorial) — The five conservatives of the Supreme Court chose corporations over everyone else.

NATIONAL NEWS:

►  At AFL-CIO Now — 44 million could lose health insurance under Republican budget — The House Republican budget plan would throw as many as 44 million low-income adults and children out of Medicaid over the next 10 years and likely leave them with no health care coverage, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study.

►  In today’s NY Times — Oil executives, defending tax breaks, say they’d cede them if everyone did — Executives of five of the largest oil companies on Thursday defended the $2.1 billion they receive each year in tax breaks, but said they would be willing to give them up as part of a comprehensive reform of the tax code.

►  At Publicola — Exxon CEO has misfortune of facing off against Sen. Cantwell — She corners Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson and gets him to say that based on traditional supply and demand, without the manipulations of speculators, oil should be at about $60-$70 a barrel (as opposed to the $98 price today).

►  In today’s Washington Post — Defying the conventional wisdom about federal workers (Joe Davidson column) — The Obama administration, generally a friend of organized labor, also has made some moves that are not to the liking of federal employees. The biggest item is the two-year pay freeze that began in January. Now the administration wants to cut workers’ compensation for federal staffers, saying the compensation discourages injured employees from returning to work.

►  At AFL-CIO Now — Postal workers ratify contract — By a margin of more than three-to-one, APWU members have ratified a new four-and-one-half-year contract with the USPS that calls for increasing wages by 3.5% over term, creates new positions and provides job security.

►  At Politico — Huntsman on cap and trade: ‘It hasn’t worked’ — Jon Huntsman is backing away from his support for a cap-and-trade system for Western states that he once championed as Utah governor.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 9 a.m. Make this electronic “clip service” your first stop each morning! These links are functional on the date of posting, but sometimes expire.