DAILY NEWS
$15 enforcement, Ex-Im cronyism, Chuck E’s true love…
Friday, September 19, 2014
LOCAL
EDITOR’S NOTE — All are invited to attend this event TODAY (Friday, Sept. 19) AT NOON at Seattle City Hall, 600 4th Ave. Get details.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Mayor’s plan would ensure work goes to poor, jobless in Seattle — Mayor Ed Murray is proposing an ordinance that would reserve a percentage of work on projects of $5 million and more for people who live in local ZIP codes with high concentrations of poverty and unemployment. A coalition of labor unions and activist organizations support the plan.
► In today’s Seattle Times — New Microsoft layoffs affect 750 locally — The layoffs, part of a second wave of job cuts, include 747 in the Puget Sound area. Added to earlier cuts that began in July, the total number of jobs eliminated in the area has reached nearly 2,100.
► In today’s Seattle Times — As Bertha languishes, tunnel is hive of activity — In the lull created by giant tunnel-boring Bertha’s problems, workers behind the machine are constructing the double-decker Highway 99 roadway inside the tunnel in Sodo.
► In today’s Peninsula Daily News — Deadline issue debated in hearing on Sequim ballot initiatives lawsuit — The legality of the initiatives was briefly discussed before Judge Erik Rohrer on Thursday, but the issues he was considering centered around the ballot deadline and whether the Teamsters Local 589, which represents 50 Sequim employees, could join the city’s defense.
ALSO at The Stand — Cities reject extremist group’s push for ‘right-to-work’
STATE GOVERNMENT
► From AP — State forecasters: $636 million in marijuana tax revenues through 2019 — The forecast showed that just over $25 million from a variety of marijuana-related taxes — including excise, sales, and business taxes — is expected to be collected through the middle of next year. An additional $207 million is expected for the next two-year budget that ends mid-2017. And $404 million is expected for the 2017-19 budget biennium.
► In the Oregonian — Oregon minimum wage will increase to $9.25 in 2015 — Oregon’s minimum wage will increase 15 cents to $9.25 an hour in 2015, state officials have announced. Oregon has the nation’s second-highest minimum wage, behind only Washington. The rates in both states are tied to inflation, so they are adjusted every year in an attempt to keep pace with the cost of living.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Washington’s is currently $9.32 an hour. Later this month, the state will announce how much the 2015 inflationary increase will be.
AEROSPACE
► In the P.S. Business Journal — Boeing 777X construction project to begin 7 weeks early — Construction on Boeing’s 777X Composite Wing Center is set to begin almost two months earlier than planned. A key building permit for the Everett-based project was approved Sept. 10, seven weeks ahead of schedule.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
► At Huffington Post — Republican proposal for labor law reform ‘a disgrace,’ says labor leader — “This is the destruction of the NLRB, and they know it,” said CWA President Larry Cohen. “It is a disgrace. Lamar Alexander is a disgrace.”
► In today’s NY Times — Lawsuit seeks stricter rules for truck driver training — Despite being ordered twice by Congress to come up with training requirements for commercial truck drivers, the Transportation Department has yet to do so, leaving Americans sharing the road with big-rig operators who spend only 10 hours in a classroom before hitting the highways. On Thursday, a group of safety advocates and the Teamsters union sued in federal court, saying the agency had dragged its feet on the long-overdue rules, breaking deadlines since 1993, most recently last year.
► In today’s Washington Post — Workers deserve to benefit from their productivity, too (by Harold Meyerson) — The fight to increase Americans’ stagnant incomes is, at long last, growing more serious. Thursday, with the explicit backing of the House Democratic Caucus, Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, is introducing a bill that would prompt corporations to reward workers — not just top executives and major shareholders — for their gains in productivity.
► At Think Progress — John Boehner says unemployed people ‘just sit around,’ don’t think they have to work — House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio):
This idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather just sit around.
T.G.I.F.
► Chuck E. Weiss was a musician who spent a lot of time hanging out in L.A. with Rickie Lee Jones and her then-lover Tom Waits in the 1970s. Weiss temporarily disappeared from the scene, but eventually called Waits to explain that he had fallen in love and moved to Denver. When Waits hung up the phone he told Jones, “Chuck E.’s in love.” She liked the sound of that and wrote a song around it. So, no… contrary to the song’s twist ending, Chuck E. was never “in love with the little girl who’s singing this song.” But the Entire Staff of The Stand™ sure was. We’d strongly recommend Rickie Lee’s eponymous first album — which included this hit — to anybody who hasn’t already basked in its brilliance.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.