Tuesday, September 15, 2015

TEACHER STRIKES

► This morning at SeattleTimes.com — Seattle teachers and district reach tentative agreement — After all-night talks, the Seattle teachers union and Seattle Public Schools have reached a tentative agreement that could end a nearly weeklong strike. However, the strike won’t be suspended until the union board of directors and representative assembly both approve the agreement, according to the union. The two groups will look at the tentative contract later Tuesday.

ALSO at The Stand — Union announces tentative deal to end Seattle teachers’ strike

► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Kelso teachers vote to strike — Kelso teachers plan to hit the picket lines Wednesday, canceling school unless a deal with the district is reached by tonight. According to a union source, an “overwhelming majority” of the 250 union members at Monday night’s meeting in Longview’s AWPPW hall voted to strike. The Kelso Education Association — which represents about 300 teachers — has been negotiating unsuccessfully with Kelso School District since April and has been working without a contract since June.

► In today’s Tri-City Herald — Pasco schools open Tuesday after teachers ratify contract — A pay increase of about 8.7 percent over the next two years is on par with what the Richland School District recently gave its teachers but is still below what teacher representatives sought. Still, as an estimated 900 teachers streamed out of the Pasco High School auditorium after the vote, they laughed and hugged and shouted to each other that they would see each other at school. Their strike was over.

► And then, there’s this…

LOCAL

► In today’s News Tribune — Haggen-Albertsons-Safeway fiasco hurts real people (editorial) — Until late last year, Bellingham-based Haggen had been an 18-store chain with nice seafood sections. Now it’s a bloated goliath caught in a monumental corporate crackup. Hundreds of its employees — and some communities, including Spanaway — have become collateral damage… People got laid off when Haggen closed some of its foundering new stories. Other workers got their hours cut. Non-compete clauses may complicate current employees’ ability to land jobs outside the stricken Haggen empire. We trust the new Safeway-Albertson behemoth won’t niggle over contract language when their own former employees apply for work.

STATE GOVERNMENT

► From AP — Washington state’s latest revenue forecast projects increased budget — The updated forecast for the current two-year nearly $38 billion budget cycle shows that lawmakers have more than $100 million more available to them through the middle of 2015, and that they’ll have an additional $365 million than additionally projected for the 2015-2017 biennium.

► From AP — Manweller to file initiative related to Supreme Court ruling — Rep. Matt Manweller (R-Ellensburg) said he’ll file an initiative to the Legislature this week that would require state Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves if they’ve received large campaign contributions from those involved in cases before the court.

EDITOR’S NOTE — We assume that, in the interest of not being a complete and total hypocrite, Manweller will recuse himself from votes on legislation that directly affect corporations and industries from which he personally received large campaign contributions. Following is a partial list of corporations that gave Manweller the maximum or near-maximum allowable contributions in 2014: Boeing, Simpson, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, CenturyLink, Microsoft, Yahoo, Transalta, Pfizer, Premera Blue Cross, Altria, BNSF Railroads, Puget Sound Energy, Pacificorp, Delta Dental, Federal Express, something called “Cash America,” and… must we go on? And that doesn’t even include the industry special-interest PACs. (See the whole list here.)

► In today’s Olympian — Laurie Dolan of Olympia running for state House — A former teacher, school administrator and aide to Gov. Chris Gregoire became the first to announce a 2016 bid for the seat now occupied by Rep. Chris Reykdal, who is giving up the position to run statewide for superintendent of public instruction.

AEROSPACE

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing starts final assembly of its first 737 MAX — The first Boeing 737 MAX now has its wings, including distinctive new advanced technology split wingtips. The tail is coming soon. Boeing said Tuesday that it has begun final assembly of the first 737 MAX on a new dedicated production line in Renton.

► From AFP — Taking aim at Boeing, Airbus opens first U.S. plant — European jetmaker Airbus inaugurated its first U.S. plant Monday in a move to wrest away a chunk of rival Boeing’s domination of the domestic aircraft market, including lucrative Pentagon contracts. Airbus plans to assemble 40-50 of its single-aisle A320 family every year beginning in 2018 from the plant in Mobile, Alabama.

► From Reuters — Airbus draws union interest as it opens first U.S. factory — Airbus threw a party for its new U.S. workers ahead of the formal opening Monday of its first commercial jet factory in the United States, and representatives of the Machinists union joined the crowd.

► In the P.S. Business Journal — Lynnwood aerospace factory expansion reflects hot demand for fuel-efficiency data — Crane Aerospace & Electronics broke ground Monday on a 12,000-square-foot addition to its Lynnwood building, which will boost employment by about 50. Currently Crane employs 775 at its Lynnwood facility.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

► From The Hill — Businesses intensify push for Ex-Im Bank — The Business Roundtable sent a letter to House and Senate leaders arguing that U.S. companies have lost international sales and put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk because Congress failed to reauthorize the bank before its charter expired June 30.

► From The Hill — McConnell wary of Murray-Ryan 2.0 — Democrats are working with a small group of Republican appropriators in a push for an eight-week stopgap government funding measure meant to give leaders time to negotiate Ryan-Murray 2.0, a budget deal that will allow them to pass appropriations bills before Christmas.

CAMPAIGN 2016

► From Politico — Walker sinks despite anti-union message — Scott Walker’s presidential campaign is premised in a large part on the idea that GOP primary voters will flock to a candidate willing to confront and diminish the power of organized labor. But as Walker’s support tumbles from double digits as recently as July to a dismal 2 percent, one of 2016’s biggest surprises is that the anti-union message isn’t selling, either for Walker or for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another GOP candidate who’s built much of his campaign around his willingness to face down “union bosses.” Unions don’t seem to loom especially large as a problem to rank-and-file Republican voters.

► From Huffington Post — Pro-Clinton super PAC is going negative on Bernie Sanders — Hillary Clinton’s camp has long said it has no plans to attack Sanders. But the super PAC, called Correct the Record, is trying to link Sanders to some of the more controversial remarks made by Jeremy Corbyn, the UK’s new Labour Party leader, including his praise for the late Hugo Chavez.

NATIONAL

► From AFP — Tense union talks as deadline approaches in Detroit — With hours to go before a possible strike is called at Fiat Chrysler’s U.S. plants, chief Sergio Marchionne stepped in Monday to try to negotiate a new union contract. GM and Ford are watching closely because whatever deal is reached with FCA will dictate the wages and benefits the UAW union seeks at the remaining Detroit carmakers.

► In today’s Detroit Free Press — No deal yet: UAW: Fiat, Chrysler pull an all-nighter — No deal yet as the UAW and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles continued to negotiate through the night after extending the existing collective agreement on an hour-by-hour basis in anticipation of signing a tentative agreement soon.

► From Politico — Pope to highlight plight of prisoners — Of all the timeless and timely issues Pope Francis plans to address during his visit to the United States, there’s one that could result in an actual political “deliverable” — criminal justice reform.

► From AP — Now arriving: airport control towers with no humans inside — While the majority of the world’s airports will, for some time, still have controllers on site, experts say unmanned towers are coming. They’ll likely first go into use at small and medium airports, but eventually even the world’s largest airports could see an array of cameras mounted on a pole replacing their concrete control towers.

TODAY’S MUST-SEE

► From GetUp! Australia — What the TPP means for you and your family — Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), multinational corporations will be able to sue the Australian Government in secret corporate courts over laws that protect our health, environment and workers’ rights.

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