Tuesday, January 22, 2019

TRUMP’S SHUTDOWN

► From TPM — TSA screener sick-outs hit 10 percent as shutdown stretches into 5th week — The workers who screen passengers and their bags face missing another paycheck if the shutdown doesn’t end early this week. According to TSA, many of them say the financial hardship is preventing them from reporting to work.

ALSO at The Stand — “Stop the Shutdown” rally with TSA officers TODAY at Sea-Tac Airport — AFGE TSA officers will rally on Tuesday, Jan. 22 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Flag Pavilion at the Sea-Tac International Airport entrance on International Blvd. to call for an immediate end to the shutdown. All union members and community supporters are invited to attend.

‘My children come home from school hungry, they open the refrigerator, and there isn’t anything.’ — This is what Trump’s shutdown is doing to families across the U.S. pic.twitter.com/0j4AsudQ4b

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 20, 2019

► From KUOW — Federal workers in Washington state struggle to survive without pay during shutdown — There are nearly 11,000 federal workers in Washington, one of the few states providing unemployment benefits to furloughed workers. But federal regulations prevent the state from providing unemployment to those who are required to work without pay.

► In today’s NY Times — Shutdown’s pain cuts deep for the homeless, other vulnerable Americans — One month in, with the Department of Housing and Urban Development hit hard, subsidies for low-income renters have stopped. And without lifeblood payments from HUD, nonprofit groups are scrambling to avoid layoffs and cuts to support services.

► From Politico — Shutdown squeezes every part of air travel — Canceled training classes, unbought luggage scanners and delays in plane deliveries are adding to the burdens as thousands work without pay.

► From The Hill — Congress heading in opposite directions on shutdown plans — The House and Senate are heading in opposite directions as the partial government shutdown crosses the one-month mark. Lawmakers will take up competing plans this week to reopen the government, neither of which has enough support to pass both chambers, garner President Trump’s signature and end the stalemated funding fight.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Senate Republicans all but surrender to Trump on wall, despite shutdown’s toll

TAKE A STAND — Call your U.S. Senators at 1-866-803-8830 — or by clicking here — and urge them to reopen the government NOW by demanding an immediate vote in the Senate.

► In today’s Washington Post — Trump voters now blame him for the government shutdown — Two years ago, Jeff Daudert was fed up with politics. He wanted to shake up the status quo. He didn’t mind sending a message to the establishment — and, frankly, he liked the idea of a disruptive president. But the 49-year-old retired Navy reservist has had some second thoughts. “What the [expletive] were we thinking?” he asked the other night inside a Walmart here, in an area of blue-collar suburban Detroit that helped deliver the presidency to Trump.

► In today’s Washington Post — Shutdown in U.S., slowing growth in China fuel concerns over global economy

► From HuffPost — Shutdown leaves government websites vulnerable to hackers

► In today’s Columbian — Shutdown’s second month expands scope of uncertainty in Clark County — As the partial government shutdown drags past its one-month anniversary, the closure’s impacts are spreading beyond furloughed and unpaid federal employees and hitting the general public.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Stop holding people hostage, furloughed NOAA worker pleads — Everett resident Anna Kagley is one of the 800,000 workers not being paid as the shutdown continues.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Rep. Larsen says ending shutdown comes before other issues — The 10-term congressman addressed questions about the federal closure, the wall and Trump.

► In today’s Bellingham Herald — As federal shutdown spreads to Bellingham Coast Guard, more residents asking how to help

► In today’s Peninsula Daily News — Local groups offer assistance to federal workers during shutdown

LOCAL

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing overhauls quality controls: more high-tech tracking but fewer inspectors — One element of what Boeing is calling its “Quality Transformation” has unnerved the Machinists union and current quality inspectors: The company told the union last month it will eliminate thousands of quality checks as no longer necessary. Boeing said it will cut about 450 quality-inspector positions this year and potentially a similar number in 2020. In the Puget Sound region, there are now just over 3,000 Boeing Quality Inspectors, who typically work as a second set of eyes. For each of the tens of thousands of jobs that go into assembling an airplane, they formally sign off that it has been completed and done right. By the end of next year, Boeing’s plan would bring that down to not many more than 2,000 people.

► In today’s Columbian — Vancouver district plans unfair labor claim against support staff — Vancouver Public Schools and the union announced they had reached a tentative agreement on Dec. 21, 2018, after months of bargaining. But last week, VAESP told its members that the district canceled that agreement. The district denies having done so and has now flipped the accusation onto the union, saying its leadership are the ones who withdrew from the tentative agreement.

► From KNKX — Seattle school district plans budget cuts, including reducing some librarians to part time — The school district has laid out its plans for making $39.7 million worth of cuts, including removing assistant principals from some schools and reducing some librarians to part time.

► In today’s Seattle Times — ‘I’m just gonna presume it’s late forever’: Seattle school-bus delays consistent during first week of viadoom — The closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct has nothing on the months-long driver shortage faced by Seattle Public Schools’ main bus contractor, First Student.

► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Thousands turn out for Spokane march honoring MLK — Two-and-a-half-year-old Aveline Jones plodded in her yellow shoes, pink pants and black coat with her hand firmly in her mother’s grasp Monday as they joined about 3,000 other marchers to celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

MORE MLK Day coverage in the Columbia Basin Herald, Kitsap Sun, Peninsula Daily News, Seattle P-I, Skagit Valley Herald, (Tacoma) News Tribune, (Vancouver) Columbian, and the Yakima H-R.

ALSO at The Stand — MLK: Champion of unions, economic justice

► In the Yakima H-R — Women’s March on Yakima highlights missing, murdered indigenous women — As more than 400 people marched through downtown Yakima on Saturday, the names of missing and murdered Yakama Nation women echoed off the buildings.

MORE Women’s March coverage in the Ellensburg Daily Record, Peninsula Daily News, Seattle P-I, (Spokane) Spokesman-Review, and the Yakima H-R.

► From KNKX — Teacher of the Year uses platform to draw attention to detention of migrant children — Mandy Manning is using her position as the 2018 National Teacher of the Year to draw attention to the detention of thousands of migrant children in the United States. The Spokane teacher who educates immigrant and refugee children is planning a teach-in next month in Texas about the impact of detaining kids.

► In the News Tribune — Tacoma’s renowned chronicler of the working waterfront has died. Ron Magden was 92. — The book Ron Magden co-authored was essential reading for those hoping to understand Tacoma’s maritime heritage, its labor history and how the region’s ports, especially Tacoma’s, wound up looking like they do now.

THIS WASHINGTON

► In the Seattle Times — The missing gaps in state school funding (by several school superintendents) — Next month, several school districts across the state will ask voters to consider funding local levies for public education. As superintendents collectively representing more than 100,000 students and their families across the Puget Sound region, we feel it is imperative to provide additional context on the financial realities school districts are facing… We are on track for school budget cuts that disproportionately hurt students of color and those who are living in poverty — the very students who are negatively impacted by the opportunity gap we are all striving to close.

► From the AP — Former lawmaker ousted amid #MeToo registers as lobbyist — Former Rep. David Sawyer has registered as a lobbyist months after he lost his primary election following an investigation that found he violated the House’s policies on harassment, decorum and ethics.

THAT WASHINGTON

► In today’s NY Times — This should be the final answer to the census question (editorial) — The Trump administration is likely to appeal. But after U.S. District Court Judge Jesse M. Furman’s comprehensive, unassailable 277-page drubbing, it would be astonishing if any judge allowed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to proceed with his hasty, sloppy meddling in the census.

► From Politico — Democrats’ plan to neuter Medicare for All irks liberals — Several likely 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are pushing plans for something short of universal health care, a move already creating friction within the party’s empowered left wing, which has panned any attempt to water down the progressive dream of a single-payer system.

► In today’s NY Times — Donald Trump did something right (by Elizabeth Rosenthal) — His administration has ordered hospitals to reveal their prices. If patients and politicians pay attention, this could be a big deal.

NATIONAL

► From HuffPost — Union membership in the U.S. dropped slightly in 2018 — The share of U.S. workers belonging to a labor union fell slightly last year, hovering near a historic low. The number of workers who are union members dropped only marginally, from 14.8 million in 2017 to 14.7 million in 2018, but an increase in workers in the U.S. meant that the percentage in unions fell more sharply, from 10.7 percent to 10.5.

ALSO at The Stand — Washington state’s unions post big membership gains — The state’s union membership rate increased to 19.8 percent of the total workforce in 2018, up from 18.8 percent in 2017, according to a report released Jan. 18 by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. With an additional 65,000 workers joining the ranks last year, there are now an estimated 649,000 union members in Washington, making it the third most unionized state in the nation.

JOIN TOGETHER! — If you don’t have a union at your job, learn how to join together with your co-workers and negotiate a fair return for your work. Click here to get started.

► BREAKING from the LA Times — LAUSD teachers’ strike, Day 6: Joint announcement at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. — Mayor Eric Garcetti and leaders of the Los Angeles school district and the teachers union will speak at a City Hall news conference Tuesday morning in what is widely expected to be an announcement about a deal to end the six-day teachers’ strike.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From Reuters — The dismantling of a U.S. workplace safety rule, and the political battle behind it — Wardell Davis was one of an estimated 11,500 shipyard and construction workers who U.S. regulators say are exposed each year to beryllium: a toxic, carcinogenic element laced through the coal waste often used in abrasive blasting grits. These workers lie at the heart of a little-known regulatory drama unfolding behind the Trump administration’s push to relax safety rules it deems burdensome to U.S. businesses. Just after the election, the Trump administration and its congressional allies began moving to unravel key provisions of a federal rule, issued in the last days of the Obama presidency, that sharply limited workplace exposure to beryllium and required certain industries to carefully monitor health risks.

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