DAILY NEWS
Too important to ‘fast track,’ teachers rally, high cost of cheap clothes…
Monday, April 27, 2015
FAST TRACK
ALSO at The Stand — McDermott thanked for opposing Fast Track in committee vote
► From The Hill — Lawmakers play catch-up with ‘secret’ trade text — About 40 House members and three senators have asked to view the text of a massive Asia-Pacific trade deal in the three years since it was made available by the White House, according to records obtained by The Hill.
► In the Washington Post — The trade-off Obama missed on trade (by Dana Milbank) — No, President Obama, Elizabeth Warren isn’t wrong. Warren is right: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an abomination — not because of the deal itself, and not because free trade in general is a bad idea. The TPP is an abomination because Obama had a chance to protect American workers from the harm that would inevitably come from such a pact, and he didn’t take it, or at least he hasn’t.
► If you want to see what these NAFTA-style “fast tracked” trade deals promote, check out Last Week Tonight — John Oliver on fashion and why sweatshops still exist
STATE GOVERNMENT
► In today’s Seattle Times — Transportation talks roll on as Legislature extends session — Legislators don’t face the same mandate to get a transportation deal done that the Supreme Court’s contempt order puts behind education spending or the threat of government shutdown gives the overall operating budget, but leaders have said passing a package is urgent.
► In the News Tribune — House Democrats see carbon emissions tax as educational funding fix — Democrats in the state House aren’t wild about a Republican plan to raise the statewide property tax to help the state pay its share of basic education costs. Instead, they’d rather fix the problem by using a tax on carbon emissions.
► In the (Everett) Herald — Nothing ‘special’ about delay (editorial) — This ought to be an editorial that praises the Legislature for having tackled a formidable list of tasks, including a budget of transportation projects for the next 16 years and a gas tax increase to pay for it, operating and capital budgets with funding for important programs and projects and, most importantly, significant progress on meeting its constitutional mandate to achieve full funding for education. You’ll have to check back with us next month. Or the month after that.
LOCAL
► In the (Everett) Herald — Machinists union sets vote to add Everett aerospace supplier
► In the Peninsula Daily News — Fallen workers to be honored Tuesday at Department of Labor & Industries ceremony — Six young people under the age of 25 — three loggers, a landscape worker, a farmworker and a commercial diver — and an 80-year-old equipment operator are among the 89 people who died from work-related causes in 2014. They will be honored at the state Department of Labor & Industries’ Worker Memorial Day ceremony at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
ALSO at The Stand — Workers Memorial Day events honor the fallen
► From AP — Temporary contract keeps Northwest Detention Center running — The Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma will remain operating after U.S. ICE and the GEO Group Inc. signed a temporary contact. The short-term pact was signed Thursday and will extend through May 31. GEO has owned the Detention Center on the Tideflats since 2005 but their most recent contract was put up for bid in December.
NATIONAL
► In today’s Washington Post — It’s not just you: Letters really are taking longer to get delivered — In January, the Postal Service eliminated overnight delivery for local first-class letters that used to arrive the next day. Anywhere from 20 percent to half of the rest of the first-class mail sent every day now takes an extra day of delivery time. Service standards have been relaxing since 2012, when the volume of first-class overnight mail decreased and that of two-and three-day mail grew.
► In today’s NY Times — Drought frames economic divide of Californians — The fierce drought that is gripping the West — and the imminent prospect of rationing and steep water price increases in California — is sharpening the deep economic divide in this state, illustrating parallel worlds in which wealthy communities guzzle water as poorer neighbors conserve by necessity.
► From Think Progress — Meet the people going without food for 15 days to demand a $15 wage — a group of fast food workers and community supporters who began a 15-day fast outside of the Los Angeles city hall two weeks ago to demand a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour.
TODAY’S MUST-READ
By contrast, Sakuma workers have very few resources. Some are local workers, but over half are migrants from California, like Rosario Ventura and her family. Both the local workers and the California migrants are immigrants, coming from indigenous towns in Oaxaca and southern Mexico where people speak languages like Mixteco and Triqui. While all farm workers in the U.S. are poorly paid, these new indigenous arrivals are at the bottom. One recent study in California found that tens of thousands of indigenous farm workers received less than minimum wage.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.