NEWS ROUNDUP
Revive ‘Made in Washington,’ Amazon vs. its workers, jailing the poor…
Monday, May 16, 2016
STATE GOVERNMENT
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — It’s Supreme Court turn to judge lawmakers’ progress (editorial) — Individual assessments of how the legislators’ report on education funding will be received by court justices has ranged from Democrats admitting that more could have be done to Republican indifference to the court’s reaction.
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Democrats look to fill vacant House seat — John Lovick, who has served as both Snohomish County executive and sheriff, is a former state lawmaker. He has been campaigning for to fill the legislative seat vacated by Hans Dunshee and now intends to seek the appointment.
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Candidate filing for fall elections begins Monday
► In the Columbian — Benton files whistleblower complaint against McCauley — Just weeks before Don Benton was ousted from his job heading the county’s Environmental Services department, the Vancouver senator filed a whistleblower complaint accusing Acting County Manager Mark McCauley of illegal actions and political retaliation.
► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Call to cancel Washington’s presidential primary came too late — State statutes require a presidential primary the fourth Tuesday in May, and only the Legislature can suspend it. It didn’t.
LOCAL
ALSO at The Stand — Labor, community backs Triumph strikers
► In today’s NY Times — Amazon proves infertile soil for unions, so far — In early April, Kellen Wadach, an Amazon warehouse general manager, told hundreds of workers a troubling story about his family being abandoned by his father’s union. Flashing a photograph of himself as a boy with his father, he said the union did not help his family financially after his father died suddenly in front of their house, not even bothering to send a condolence card. The problem with Wadach’s story was that much of it appears to have been untrue. For years, Amazon has successfully battled to keep unions out of the company. And the incident involving Wadach was an illustration of how important it was to Amazon — or at least to some of its employees — to keep it that way.
ALSO at The Stand — Help save KPLU, the state’s only unionized NPR station
CAMPAIGN 2016
► From Huffington Post — Really, really rich Trump is no workers’ champion (by Leo W. Gerard) — Like all robber barons, Trump can’t spare a dime. He made that clear in the November Fox News debate. Trump said $7.25 is too much, too high a wage for the guy working two minimum-wage jobs to keep a roof over his widowed mother’s head or the single mother working 60 hours a week at two fast food joints to support her child.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
► From The Hill — Poll: Majority of Americans support universal healthcare — A majority of Americans are in favor of a federally funded healthcare system that provides insurance to all Americans, according to a new Gallup poll. Some 58 percent of respondents support replacing ObamaCare with a universal healthcare system, and 37 percent oppose that plan.
► From Reuters — Unions say Colombia’s not enforcing U.S. trade deal labor standards — U.S. and Colombian labor unions said the Colombian government failed to enforce worker protections in a free trade agreement with the United States, raising questions about similar provisions in a massive pan-Pacific deal. The complaint, to be filed with a division of the U.S. Labor Department, said threats and acts of violence against trade unionists in Colombia were neither properly investigated nor prosecuted.
NATIONAL
► From The American Prospect — Confronting the parasite economy (by Nick Hanauer) — In the real economy, we solve the problems, build the things, and pay the wages that make America great… In the parasite economy — where companies large and small cling to low-wage business models out of ignorance or habit or simple greed — “good jobs,” and the economic dynamism they produce, are in short supply… The real economy delivers on the promise of capitalism. The parasite economy relentlessly undermines it.
TODAY’S MUST-READ
“That pass-through [in] jails is damaging and has huge repercussions. You’re talking about people who often come in in fragile economic situations and end up that much worse by the time they get out.”
ALSO from the Atlantic — Debtors’ prisons in 21st Century America
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.