Wednesday, January 30, 2019

BOEING

► In today’s Seattle Times — Record Boeing earnings soar past Wall Street expectations — The key metric the stock market currently watches to judge Boeing’s performance is cash flow, which came in at $2.95 billion for the quarter and $15.3 billion for the full year. Also for the first time, Boeing’s revenue for the full year surpassed $100 billion.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing’s decision of the decade: Does it build the 797? — It’s only January, but Boeing Co. executives are already closing in on one of their most important decisions of the year: whether to plow an estimated $15 billion into a new jetliner family. The aircraft nicknamed the 797 would feature Boeing’s first all-new design since the 787 Dreamliner’s unveiling in 2004, while shoring up its product line against recent Airbus advances.

► From Reuters — Exclusive: Boeing speeds 787 line to prepare for output of 14/month — Boeing Co has starting running 787 Dreamliner assembly lines at a rate ready to support higher output of 14 jets a month, raised from 12 per month, bringing it within reach of a goal designed to boost cash and reduce costs, people familiar with the matter said.

LOCAL

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Sno-Isle Tech teachers finally get their pay raise — There were no pickets, no protests and not much public pressure. But Monday night, teachers at the Sno-Isle Technical Skills Center (AFT) secured what they had been pursuing quietly for months — raises in line with double-digit hikes netted by thousands of public school instructors in Snohomish and Island counties last year. Sno-Isle Tech teachers will receive 18 percent pay hikes under a revised collective bargaining agreement approved Monday night by the Mukilteo School Board. The increase is retroactive to Sept. 1 and applies to the base pay of 21 teachers.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Want a raise? Get a union! Get more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate a fair return for your hard work. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!

► From KIRO — Workers accuse grocery app Instacart of misusing their tips — Workers behind Instacart, the grocery delivery company and app, say they’re getting punished for getting a tip. People who shop and deliver for the app say the higher the tip, the less wage they make – and that the company is using customers’ tips to subsidize wages.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Howard Schultz is above the political fray — so high above he often doesn’t vote (by Danny Westneat) — Like a lot of outsider business execs who want to come in and fix politics, Howard Schultz has kept some distance from the mess of democracy in the past. By not voting.

THIS WASHINGTON

► From Reuters — Trump NLRB appointees give big win to employers — The National Labor Relations Board made it easier Friday for companies to treat their workers as independent contractors excluded from federal labor protections, overturning an Obama-era precedent. By a 3-1 party-line vote, Republican board members sided against shuttle van drivers for SuperShuttle, who were seeking to unionize at Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The NLRB ruled that they were independent contractors, not employees, and therefore weren’t protected by a New Deal-era law enshrining workers’ right to organize. The board overruled a 2014 case, FedEx Home Delivery, in which a Democratic majority on the NLRB had established a standard making it easier for workers to be considered employees rather than contractors.

ALSO at The Stand — Worker classification needs more clarity in Washington state — Employees who are wrongly classified as independent contractors have a lot to lose, including minimum wage protections, overtime pay, unemployment insurance if they get laid off, workers’ compensation coverage if they are injured at work, and other protections that most of us take for granted.

► In today’s Olympian — No plan to arm teachers, but Legislature looks at other ways to keep schools safe — Democratic legislators outlined nine bills that would provide for the hiring of more guidance counselors and training and support for educators and students, among several items. None of them calls for arming teachers or other school personnel.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Inslee appoints Lisa Brown to lead Department of Commerce

THAT WASHINGTON

► From The Hill — No GOP appetite for a second shutdown — Senate Republicans are signaling they will do just about anything to prevent a second shutdown after the White House was widely seen as badly losing the political fight over the closure that ended with Trump’s retreat.

► In today’s Washington Post — House set to pass 2.6 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees — The House on Wednesday is set to pass a pay raise for civilian federal employees in what Democrats are casting as both a necessity and a gesture of appreciation for a workforce reeling after a 35-day partial government shutdown. The 2.6-percent raise is calibrated to match that given to military personnel in a 2019 spending bill passed last year. President Trump subjected the rest of the federal workforce to a pay freeze in a Dec. 28 executive order, though Congress could override that at any time.

► In today’s Columbian — Herrera Beutler moves to reinstate rail safety rules –Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-3rd) has reintroduced a bill to reinstate oil train safety regulations. The rules, implemented by the Obama administration in 2015, were rolled back last year.

NATIONAL

► From HuffPost — Latino turnout surged. Then Texas questioned 98,000 voters’ citizenship. — A Republican-led effort to investigate the validity of nearly 100,000 voter registrations will likely hit Latinos hardest.

► In today’s Washington Post — Trump’s company plans to expand check of employees’ legal status following report that it hired undocumented workers for years

TODAY’S MUST-SEE

► From Media Matters — AFL-CIO president shuts down Fox host’s attack on immigrant workers — AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Undocumented workers are “great when no one’s around; when they try to organize and get a voice, then they start squeezing them… calling in ICE, and different things.”

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