DAILY NEWS
Grocery vote, road woes, crappy health plans, staffed NLRB…
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
LOCAL
► In today’s Seattle Times — Grocery contract has small gains, no major takeaways — A union summary says the proposal maintains health benefits for both current employees and new hires, with no increases in weekly premiums or deductibles, and secures workers’ pension plans.
ALSO at The Stand — Tentative agreement averts Puget Sound-area grocery strike (Oct. 22)
► In the Skagit Valley Herald — Worker files suit against Sakuma — The potential class-action lawsuit claims the Sakuma Brothers berry farm denied up to 400 workers 10-minute rest breaks for every four hours of work and then did not pay workers for any breaks. The suit follows a summer of distress for farm that included a number of strikes and a call to boycott company products by migrant farm workers who complained of mistreatment and pay discrepancies between migrant and guest workers.
► In today’s Columbian — Oil terminal foes pack hearing — Among those against the plan are members of the ILWU Local 4, who have voted to oppose the terminal, said President Cager Clabaugh. That’s despite the fact that the union would benefit from some of the jobs the facility promises. “The risk is not worth the reward, plain and simple,” he said. “We don’t want it.”
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Report from an aerospace supplier’s open house — The CEO at Umbra Cuscinetti’s Everett plant says his biggest challenge is finding people. “We are struggling to get machinists, and are talking about going out of state. We really expect to grow. Finding machinists is paramount to us.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — Common translation: “We are really having trouble finding skilled people who are willing to work for what we’re paying.”
STATE GOVERNMENT
ALSO at The Stand — Coalition urges special session to fix transportation problems (Sept. 6)
► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Washington prisons want more space — Washington needs to start planning for more prison space, especially for women, the Department of Corrections says. The department is asking Gov. Jay Inslee to include $1.8 million in his proposed adjustment in December to the state’s two-year budget. The money would start planning for a $17 million expansion at the women’s prison at Purdy and a $175 million renovation of the former Maple Lane youth detention center at Grand Mound.
► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Builder who stole given new contractor’s license — A Spokane building contractor twice imprisoned for stealing from customers managed to get a new state contractor’s license this summer after his March release.
OBAMACARE
► In today’s Seattle Times — Why states didn’t have problems that hit federal health-exchange site — Thirty-six states chose not to create their own exchange and to use the federal government’s. Some analysts argue that the complexity of doing the job at the federal level is just too great, as it must be capable of integrating with multiple-state eligibility databases.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Good thing we didn’t listen to the Republicans in our State Legislature. They fought against (and voted against) establishing our own Washington Health Benefits Exchange, in favor of accepting whatever the feds set up.
► Today in hypocrisy, from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow — ‘There are bound to be glitches’ — Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) on the Bush administration’s flawed Medicare Part D rollout: “This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches.” (He serves on the panel that’s berating Kathleen Sebelius today.) Some other GOP quotes on the Part D problems:
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas): “I think it needs to be understood that in a major reform, an improvement of a program like this, there are bound to be glitches.”Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.): “Kinks” in Part D got “worked out.”Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) to CMS official: “You guys have done a super job.”Fmr. Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.): “This is a major change in the Medicare program and it is not surprising that there have been implementation pitfalls along the way.”
► In today’s NY Times — Cancellation of health care plans replaces website as prime target — After focusing for weeks on the technical failures of President Obama’s health insurance website, Republicans on Tuesday broadened their criticism of the health care law, pointing to Americans whose health plans have been terminated because they do not meet the law’s new coverage requirements.
NATIONAL
► In today’s NY Times — Business-conservative alliance presses for immigration reform — An unlikely coalition of business executives, evangelical groups and prominent conservatives coming together to urge House Republicans to put broad immigration legislation on the House floor, ideally before the end of this year.
► In today’s NY Times — Deal reached in inquiry into visa fraud at tech giant — Infosys, the giant Indian technology outsourcing company, has agreed to pay $34 million in a civil settlement after federal prosecutors in Texas found it had committed “systemic visa fraud and abuse” when bringing temporary workers from India for jobs in American businesses. The payment is the largest ever in a visa case.
► From AP — Social Security benefits to go up by 1.5% — The increase is among the smallest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. It is small because consumer prices haven’t gone up much in the past year.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Which brings us to…
TODAY’S MUST-READ
The proposal was not exactly attuned to the political winds in Washington. Indeed, for anyone inclined to think in terms of counting potential votes in Congress — especially this Congress — the idea of expanding Social Security is the epitome of a political non-starter. Black’s proposal was attuned, however, to a mounting pile of research and demographic data that describes a gathering disaster. The famously large baby boom generation is heading into retirement. Thanks to decades of stagnant wages and the asset collapse of the Great Recession, more than half of American working-class households are at risk of being unable to sustain their standard of living past retirement. To put it even more starkly, according to research by the economists Joelle Saad-Lessler and Teresa Ghilarducci, 49 percent of middle-class workers are on track to be “poor or near poor” after they retire.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.