Thursday, October 2, 2014

BOEING

► From KPLU — Unions want tougher tax breaks that make it harder for Boeing to move jobs — Unions representing Boeing engineers and machinists are pushing Washington state lawmakers to toughen a package of aerospace tax breaks passed last year. Last November, state legislators met in a quick special session to pass a suite of aerospace tax incentives totaling more than $8.5 billion. They were aimed at enticing Boeing to build its new wide-body 777x jet here. Since then, Boeing has announced plans to move 4,000 jobs out of state.

► In the P.S. Business Journal — Punishing the unions or just a difficult defense market? Analysts disagree on Boeing job cuts — “It all comes down to the drip, drip, drip effect. Two-thousand jobs in and of themselves are a drop in a bucket. But, pretty soon you will have some water in the bottom of that bucket,” said Scott Hamilton, aviation industry consultant for the Leeham Company. He said the next concern for commercial airline jobs in Washington would be the replacement of the 737, which is currently produced in Renton.

► In the P.S. Business Journal — Faster, faster! Boeing to increase Renton 737 production rate again in 2018 — Boeing has made it official: It plans to increase the production rate of 737s at its Renton plant to 52 by 2018. That’s up from the 42 it currently builds a month in Renton and up from the 47 it plans to build a month by 2017.

EDITOR’S NOTE — “Strong efforts by Boeing employees, our suppliers and community support allow us to continue to build these fabulous airplanes in Renton for years to come,” says Boeing 737 VPO/GM Beverly Wyse in the company statement.

LOCAL

► MUST-READ in today’s Seattle Times — Love craft beer? Thank a farmworker, and pay them better (by Blanca Torres) — Washington is the globe’s top source for hops, and this should be a source of pride especially as the craft beer movement is exploding nationwide. But like many other crops that make up this state’s $49 billion agricultural industry, the workers who pick the crops often reap the least rewards — they deserve better wages… Farmers complain they can’t compete for workers with apple growers who pay more. In a world of supply and demand, I question why hop producers don’t just up their wages instead of insisting on keeping them low. If paying workers more means the price gets passed on later on down the chain, so be it.

► Meanwhile in today’s Yakima H-R — Farm worker fatally injured in Moxee hop farm accident identified — Juan Garcia, 33, of Yakima died Thursday of injuries after he was apparently struck on the head by a falling hop pole while working Sept. 21 at Black Star Ranch, southeast of Moxee.

► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Theater construction site draws union protest over workers’ wages — Representatives from a local carpenters’ union say that workers building Regal’s new 12-plex cinema at Three Rivers Mall are being paid 20 percent below area-wage standards.

STATE GOVERNMENT

► In today’s Olympian — After contempt order, roles of WA Supreme Court and Legislature to be reviewed at work session — State lawmakers continue to question whether the state Supreme Court is overstepping its bounds by closely monitoring the Legislature’s progress in the education funding case known as McCleary. The state Senate’s Law and Justice Committee is holding a work session Thursday discussing the separation of powers in government at 1 p.m. at Spokane Valley City Hall, 11707 E. Sprague Ave. in Spokane Valley.

NATIONAL

► In The Hill — Labor Department issues minimum wage rule — The Obama administration on Tuesday issued regulations requiring companies that do business with the federal government to pay their workers at least $10.10 an hour. A final rule unveiled by the Labor Department comes at the direction of President Obama, who signed an executive order in February commanding the pay hike in lieu of congressional action to raise the national minimum wage.

► In The Hill — Left embraces boycott politics — Liberal activists are successfully using pressure campaigns and boycotts to pull corporate America to the left. From gun control to climate change to same-sex marriage, a number of Fortune 500 giants are falling in line with liberal priorities and bolstering agenda items that Democrats have been unable to move through Congress.

► In the LaCrosse (Wis.) Tribune — AFL-CIO’s Trumka decries Walker anti-union ‘poster boy’ — “We have a choice — and I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of electing people who don’t represent workers,” Trumka told about 200 delegates to the Wisconsin AFL-CIO convention. “This is our country, and this is our time, and it’s time we took it back for the workers of our country.”

► At Think Progress — An obscure Senate procedure may have just re-elected America’s most anti-union governor — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) reelection campaign received an inadvertent leg up from a liberal Democratic senator, thanks to that senator’s decision to give individual senators an unusual degree of control over federal judicial appointments.

EDITOR’S NOTE — The latest poll says Walker has a 5-point lead.

► At WashingtonPost.com — Here’s Jim McDermott pretending to be Bruce Lee

T.G.I.T.

► The Entire Staff of the Stand™ will be back on Monday. (We know what you’re thinking.) Today we wish a tantric 63rd birthday to Mr. Gordon Sumner, the former school teacher who became The King of Pain.

This beautiful 1987 song — performed here in Chile — is about the mourning Chilean women who danced the Cueca, the national dance of Chile, alone with photographs of their disappeared loved ones to silently protest Augusto Pinochet’s brutal regime, during which thousands were killed or “disappeared” between 1973 and 1990. Under the direction of President Richard Nixon, the U.S. government materially assisted in the 1973 coup by Pinochet against Chile’s democratically elected president. In addition to the thousands of Chileans, four Americans were killed in Chile during Pinochet’s rule, including journalist Charles Horman and student Frank Teruggi, who were assassinated shortly after Pinochet took power. Earlier this year — 41 years later — a Chilean court found that U.S. military officers played a “fundamental role” assisting with the murders of the two Americans.

We suspect that Denver’s history classes don’t teach about that.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.