DAILY NEWS
I-1433 smiles, VA privatization, Jonesing for Trump…
Thursday, July 7, 2016
STATE GOVERNMENT
► From AP — Supporters of increasing minimum wage turn in signatures — Ariana Davis, a grocery worker from Renton who is the sponsor of I-1433, said that “this initiative is going to change the lives of every worker in Washington.” If it qualifies for the ballot and is approved by voters in November, the wage increase would be phased in starting next year, when the statewide rate would increase to $11 an hour. It would increase to $11.50 in 2018, $12 in 2019 and will hit $13.50 an hour in 2020.The measure also would provide paid sick leave to employees who don’t currently have it.
ALSO at The Stand — Over 360,000 signatures submitted for I-1433
► From KREM — I-1433 looks to raise minimum wage in Wash.
► In today’s Seattle Times — New campaign-disclosure allegations leveled at Tim Eyman — The state PDC is recommending that the state Attorney General’s Office take action on another set of campaign-disclosure allegations made against anti-tax activist Tim Eyman.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Inslee urges unity in the face of ‘fear and hatred’ in speech at Redmond mosque — To mark the end of Ramadan, Gov. Jay Inslee spoke in front of roughly 2,000 people at the Muslim Association of Puget Sound mosque in Redmond.
LOCAL
► In today’s Seattle Times — Seattle mayor proposes more paid leave for city employees with newborns, ill family members — The plan would: extend the city’s four-week paid parental leave to eight weeks; give city workers four weeks of paid family leave; and reorganize and provide additional training within the city’s human-resources department.
► In today’s News Tribune — Parent organization to St. Peter Hospital merges with St. Joseph Health — The new entity called Providence St. Joseph Health now has 50 hospitals in seven states, including Oregon, Washington and Alaska, and employs more than 100,000 people. A spokesman says the two organizations have “no intent to reduce jobs at all.”
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
► From Bloomberg — NLRB will report federal contractors’ labor violations — When an employer is named in an unfair labor practice complaint, the NLRB will report the information to a federal database to comply with the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order President Obama signed in 2014.
NATIONAL
► In today’s Washington Post — In Baton Rouge, yet another black man perishes in the hands of police (editorial) — AGAIN. Again, a black man has been shot to death by a white police officer or officers. Again, the incident has been recorded on a cellphone camera. Again, the available evidence — not conclusive, but persuasive — suggests the shooting was unwarranted.
► In today’s Washington Post — Minn. cop fatally shoots black man during traffic stop, aftermath broadcast on Facebook
INCOME INEQUALITY
► MUST-READ in today’s NY Times — How falling behind the Joneses fueled the rise of Trump — Trump’s white working class supporters — who provide somewhere between 58 and 62 percent of his votes, according to polls — have suffered a stunning loss of relative status over the past 40 years. Their wages have stagnated or declined; the ascendance of minorities has threatened their cultural dominance; and the growth of an increasingly large and affluent upper middle class has pushed goods and services once viewed as theirs by right beyond their reach… In effect, the increase in the resources commandeered by the overclass has pulled the rug out from under the once upwardly mobile white working class.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.