Monday, August 10, 2015

SATURDAY’S RALLY

► In the Seattle Times — Black Lives Matter protesters shut down Bernie Sanders; later rally draws 15,000 — A Seattle speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was pre-empted in a chaotic confrontation Saturday afternoon with a pair of Black Lives Matter protesters, who took the stage and refused to let him speak. Later in the evening, Sanders received the reception he’d expected from the Seattle area as the progressive alternative to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. An estimated 15,000 supporters packed Hec Edmundson Pavilion and an overflow area as Sanders took the stage to thunderous applause and delivered an hourlong populist stemwinder about his plans to wrest the country from the control of billionaires.

ALSO TODAY at The Stand:

Combating institutional racism can’t wait (by Lynne Dodson)

4,000-plus hear about importance of Social Security, Medicare

► At Slog — Why Saturday’s Bernie Sanders rally left me feeling heartbroken (by state Sen. Pramila Jayapal) — In the end, if we want to win for ALL of us on racial, economic, and social justice issues, we need multiple sets of tactics, working together. Some are disruptive tactics. Some are loving tactics. Some are truth-telling tactics. Some can only be taken on by white people. Some can only be taken on by people of color. Sometimes we need someone from the other strand to step in and hold us up. Other times, we have to step out and hold them up. Each of us has a different role to play but we all have to hold the collective space for movement building together. That’s what I hope we all keep in mind and work on together. It’s the only way we move forward.

► From Facebook — Y’all, I’m so mad (by Ijeoma Oluo) — For the billionth time today I’ve seen white people try to tell black people to quiet down, to stop disrupting. I’m listening to White Seattle shake their heads and lament at how black people are just “hurting their own cause” by disrupting Bernie Sanders’ event. “Can’t they see he’s their best bet?” Fuck all of that. Every single bit.

LOCAL

► In the (Longview) Daily News — Kapstone imposes latest contract offer — When KapStone employees arrive to work Monday, they’ll be working under a new contract that many of them opposed. The company announced Thursday it will implement several key components of its last contract offer starting Monday, acting after it declared a bargaining impasse earlier this week. The announcement came after 15 months of failed negotiations, which included federal mediation and the union membership’s rejection of three different contract offers. For months the union has appeared on the brink of striking, but so far the leadership has not called for a walkout. No new contract talks are planned, either.

► From Boycott Sakuma Berries — Valley Pride workers walk out demanding better wages and decent living, working conditions — Thirty-five workers walked out this morning, August 8th, from the Valley Pride Sales Inc, produce and berry farm demanding $4.75 per box of picked berries and better working and living conditions in the labor camp.

► In the PSBJ — Washington poised to become leader in oil train safety ahead of massive increase in traffic — Washington state is quickly becoming a leader in crude oil train safety standards. That’s good because the state is gearing up to become a high-traffic zone for the controversial trains.

► In the Oregonian — Precision Castparts sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $37 billion — Berkshire Hathaway confirmed Monday it’s buying Oregon’s second-biggest company, Precision Castparts, in the biggest deal in the history of the state. Precision Castparts has more than 30,000 employees, including 3,000 in Oregon.

► From KPLU — Why Bobby Kennedy went after the Teamsters, including Seattle’s Dave Beck — Seattle had a starring role in the corruption scandal that engulfed the Teamsters union in the late 1950s. That’s when it became clear that Dave Beck, the Seattle-based Teamster president, was stealing money from the organization.

STATE GOVERNMENT

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — State ferries leader gets high marks after 11 months at helm — Lynne Griffith’s impassioned leadership is lifting the spirits of Washington State Ferries’ employees beaten down by years of internal conflict and stinging public rebukes. “She is really doing a great job,” said Capt. Tim Saffle, regional representative of the International Order of Masters, Mates and Pilots Association. “She’s listening to the employees. The morale in the ferry system is way up.”

► From AP — State agencies allow babies at work — During his four months of going to work with his mom at the state Department of Health in Tumwater, Gavin VanHoozer became known as the office baby. At 8 weeks old, Gavin was part of a pilot project allowing parents to bring their newborn to work, a baby-friendly policy that Health Secretary John Wiesman made permanent at the agency last month. Now, at least one other state agency is testing a similar policy of allowing parents to bring infants to the office.

NATIONAL

► In the NY Times — Teacher shortages spur a nationwide hiring scramble — Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education — a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Pictured at right are a few teachers who walked off the job in Seattle over their frustrations about, among other things, not getting a raise for  seven years. Perhaps if we need more and better teachers, we should listen to them and treat them with a little more respect. Just a thought.

► From AP — Push for higher minimum wage ignites worry about enforcement — As a campaign to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 has achieved victories in such places as Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, it has bumped up against a harsh reality: Plenty of scofflaw businesses don’t pay the legal minimum now and probably won’t pay the new, higher wages either.

► From Bloomberg — Athletes’ Hail-Mary bid for union tests U.S. meaning of employee — The NLRB is poised to decide two closely watched cases that have the potential to reshape labor laws by allowing college football players to unionize and forcing companies to take more responsibility for contractors.

► In the NY Times — Capitalists, arise! We need to deal with income inequality (by Peter Georgescu) — If inequality is not addressed, the income gap will most likely be resolved in one of two ways: by major social unrest or through oppressive taxes… We business leaders know what to do. But do we have the will to do it? Are we willing to control the excessive greed so prevalent in our culture today and divert resources to better education and the creation of more opportunity?

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the Medium — A year after Ferguson, the fight for racial justice continues (by Carmen Berkley) — One year ago our sister’s son Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by one of our brothers on the local police force. The tragedy of Michael Brown’s death was full of complexities regarding race and racism and we as a labor movement knew we had to confront those complexities head on.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Hundreds rally on Capitol Hill to mark Ferguson anniversary

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