DAILY NEWS
Fund for Ironworkers’ families ● Schools reassess cuts ● Gig contractors
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
LOCAL
EDITOR’S NOTE — Ironworkers Local 86 has set up a fund to assist the families of Andrew Yoder and Travis Corbet, the two union members killed in the crane collapse. Donations can be made at Ironworkers USA Credit Union. Call 206-835-0150 or 1-877-769-4766 or make a donation online here.
► In today’s Tri-City Herald — Radioactive waste tunnel at Hanford stabilized after fears of a possible ‘catastrophic’ collapse — Work to fill the tunnel with concrete-like grout began in early October and was completed at the end of last week. Local government officials are relieved.
► In today’s Kitsap Sun — CHI Franciscan hospitals required to pay debt relief as part of lawsuit settlement — CHI Franciscan will be responsible for as much as $25 million in patient debt relief, restitution and fees as part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the state over CHI’s charity care practices.
THIS WASHINGTON
► From KNKX — Affirmative action opponents file referendum to overturn I-1000 — Backers of the repeal effort will have until July 27 to collect 129,811 signatures to qualify for the November 2019 ballot. If they succeed, the implementation of I-1000, a measure designed to restore affirmative action in Washington, would be delayed pending the outcome of the November election.
► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Affirmative action initiative likely to spur local discussions about race, gender in employment and recruiting — I-1000 is sure to cause policymakers in several local public institutions to re-evaluate their recruitment practices, some of which were upended in 1998 when voters approved an initiative making Washington one of eight states across the country that barred the practice of potential preferential treatment based on race, gender or nationality.
► In today’s Columbian — Legislature budget boosts education — Budget-strapped school districts in Clark County on Monday said they’d need more time to suss out how the Legislature’s late-adopted operating budget will affect their finances. But one thing seems certain: There will be a lot more money available for education.
MORE coverage of local school districts assessing budget in the Olympian, Peninsula Daily News, Spokesman-Review, and the Yakima H-R.
► In today’s Columbian — Legislature makes deadline, secures $35M for I-5 Bridge
► In today’s Seattle Times — Eight ways state lawmakers addressed housing affordability (by Rep. Guy Palumbo) –Now that the session is over, it is clear the Legislature stepped up in a big way. On a bipartisan basis, we tackled this problem from multiple angles. We made structural changes to state-level housing policies, invested major state funds into housing, and provided new funding tools for cities and counties.
BOEING
► In today’s Washington Post — Boeing says safety alert in 737 MAX didn’t work in all planes — Boeing’s 737 MAX fleet was supposed to have a standard cockpit alert that would warn pilots when sensors outside the plane were feeding in incongruous data, a problem that contributed to crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 passengers and crew members. But in fact, that safety alert only worked in aircraft with an optional feature, the manufacturer said on Monday.
► From Bloomberg — Boeing says it didn’t intentionally deactivate alert on 737 MAX
THAT WASHINGTON
► In today’s Washington Post — Medicare-for-all advocates get their first hearing on Capitol Hill — The House Rules Committee on Tuesday morning opened the first hearing in Congress on Medicare-for-all — the idea pushed by progressive Democrats running for president to convert the U.S. health-care system to a government-financed model that would cover everyone.
EDITOR’S NOTE — For those who say universal health care is too expensive…
► In today’s NY Times — Asylum seekers face new restraints under latest Trump orders — Trump ordered new restrictions on asylum seekers at the Mexican border — including application fees and work permit restraints — and directed that cases in the already clogged immigration courts be settled within 180 days. In doing so, he took another step to reshape asylum law, which is determined by Congress, from the White House.
► From Reuters — Mexico president urges U.S. to ratify new NAFTA after labor bill passes — Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday urged U.S. lawmakers to ratify a revamped North American trade pact a day after the Mexican Senate paved the way by passing a bill to strengthen the rights of trade unions.
► In today’s Wall St. Journal — Trump’s new NAFTA faces mounting resistance in Democratic House — Trump’s push to revamp North America’s trade rules is hitting a roadblock in Washington as Democrats and labor groups demand changes, dimming its chances of passage before next year’s presidential election.
► From Politico — Trump lashes out against Firefighters Union hours after Biden endorsement — President Donald Trump lashed out against the International Association of Fire Fighters on Twitter Monday morning, claiming the organization will unfairly “always support Democrats.”
► From The Onion — Trump resigns from Presidents Local 150 in protest of unions
NATIONAL
► From In These Times — Honoring the workers killed on the job — Dangerous work reflects social inequities, so it’s not surprising that 67 percent of Latinx workers killed on the job nationally were immigrants, according to a 2017 AFL-CIO report. Outsourcing also compromises workplace safety, according to Kevin Riley, director of research and evaluation at UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. He says larger employers—from manufacturers to hospitals—are subcontracting more hazardous tasks like chemical spill cleanup to smaller firms.
ALSO at The Stand — Work safety is fundamental to labor’s mission (by April Sims)
► In the NY Post — Amazon warehouse workers are getting fired by robots — Amazon workers can be sacked by robot production line masters if they don’t work fast enough picking and packing orders for the e-commerce giant. Amazon’s automated system tracks every second of its worker’s days — warnings for under-performance are auto-generated when too much time has been spent “off task.”
TODAY’S MUST-READ
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.