DAILY NEWS
Pay teachers! ● Republicans and Russia ● A Space Force question
Monday, August 13, 2018
THIS WASHINGTON
LOCAL
► In today’s Seattle Times — Seattle city workers tell of unfair treatment and mistrust, as government tracks diversity shortfalls — People of color who work for the city of Seattle are underrepresented among its top bosses, and women are badly underrepresented across all levels of city government, according to a new workforce report by Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration.
► In today’s Seattle Times — As Trump considers penalties, Seattle-area immigrants turn down public benefits they’re entitled to claim — Immigrants are withdrawing their children from health care and turning down food stamps as the Trump administration considers penalizing those who use public benefits — even if they’re legally in the U.S.
► From KNKX — Lawsuit over immigrant detainee wages is now class action — A legal challenge to $1 dollar per day wages paid to immigrants held at a Tacoma detention center can proceed as a class action lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled.
ELECTION
EDITOR’S NOTE — Labor-endorsed Democratic candidate Melanie Morgan scored 41.4% of the vote, Republican Terry Harder got 24.6% and Sawyer, who WSLC delegates voted to OPPOSE, got 22.3%.
THAT WASHINGTON
ALSO at The Stand — Urge U.S. senators to reject Kavanaugh nomination
► In today’s NY Times — The wrong way to do paid family leave (by Bryce Covert) — Marco Rubio’s bipartisan paid family leave bill is historic but forces parents to rob from their retirement to care for children.
► From The Hill — Fearing ‘blue wave,’ drug, insurance companies build single-payer defense — Powerful health-care interests’ formation of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future is a sign of the health-care industry’s alarm over growing support for a single payer health-care law within the Democratic Party.
► A related story in the Spokesman-Review — Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers won’t rule out impeaching Rod Rosenstein — Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Thursday that impeachment of Justice Department officials overseeing the Russian probe should be an option if they don’t work with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to disclose more information.
► In today’s NY Times — Voting rights advocates used to have an ally in the government. That’s changing. — During the Obama administration, the Justice Department would often go to court to stop states from restricting access to the polls. But 18 months into Trump’s term, there are signs of change: The department has launched no new efforts to roll back state restrictions on the ability to vote, and instead often sides with them.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Not in Washington state, where the Democratic-controlled Legislature has taken multiple steps to promote voting and expand access to the polls and representative government.
NATIONAL
► From The Hill — Unions see Missouri win as red state watershed — Americans’ views on unions hit a 14-year high last year, reaching 61 percent approval, a distinct turnaround since the Great Recession almost a decade ago, when approval hit an all-time low of 48 percent amid job cuts, a contracting economy and the government bailout of U.S. automakers. Even Republican support for unions is on the rise, from a low of 26 percent in 2011 to last year’s 42 percent, just a hair below the share who disapprove of unions.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Don’t just like ’em, JOIN ‘EM! Click here for information about how to join a union.
► In the Washington Post — In U.S., wage growth is being wiped out entirely by inflation — Rising prices have erased U.S. workers’ meager wage gains, the latest sign strong economic growth has not translated into greater prosperity for the middle and working classes. Cost of living was up 2.9 percent from July 2017 to July 2018, the Labor Department reported Friday, an inflation rate that outstripped a 2.7 percent increase in wages over the same period. The average U.S. “real wage,” a federal measure of pay that takes inflation into account, fell to $10.76 an hour last month, 2 cents down from where it was a year ago.
► In today’s NY Times — At Carrier, the factory Trump saved, morale is through the floor — Twenty months after the president-elect reached a deal to keep blue-collar jobs from leaving the country, absenteeism plagues the Indiana plant. Employees share a looming sense that a factory shutdown is inevitable — that Carrier has merely postponed the closing until a more politically opportune moment.
► In today’s Washington Post — White-supremacist rally near White House dwarfed by thousands of anti-hate protesters
TODAY’S QUESTION
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.