NEWS ROUNDUP
Massive safety failure ● What Ford did with its tax cut ● Strength in diversity
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
LOCAL
► In today’s Seattle Times — NTSB ‘amazed at the amount of failure’ by agencies in fatal 2017 Amtrak derailment south of Tacoma — “We have five or six or seven different organizations that all say safety is their primary responsibility, and yet nobody seems to be responsible,” said NTSB vice president Bruce Landsberg. “And it just flows all the way throughout the entire operation here, from the very top management down to the lower levels.”
► In today’s Tri-City Herald — Good news for job-seekers: This Tri-Cities industry has more workers than it’s ever had. — Thanks in part to hiring for the refueling and maintenance outage at the Energy Northwest nuclear plant near Richland, the construction industry added 900 jobs in April, pushing construction-related employment to 10,100.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing supplier to add at least 75 jobs at new composite-materials plant in Marysville — Boston-based Web Industries, which supplies carbon-fiber composite-plastic materials to the aerospace industry in customized configurations, will build a new plant in Marysville, mainly to supply Boeing’s 777X operation.
► From KUOW — Federal judge orders Seattle police to fix union contract — U.S. District Judge James Robart said in a ruling filed Tuesday that the department is partly out of compliance with an agreement to reduce the use of force. He said a police union contract that the city OKed last fall undermines the agreement and must be changed.
THIS WASHINGTON
► From KNKX — ‘Deceptive solution’ or bridge fuel? Fight over half-built LNG project continues in Tacoma. — Puget Sound Energy CEO Kimberly Harris wasn’t surprised to receive a call from Gov. Jay Inslee the afternoon of May 8. But she was surprised to hear what he had to say. “We thought we were getting a thank-you call from the governor,” Wappler said. “We weren’t. We were getting a flip-flop.” The call preceded an unexpected about-face from Inslee, regarding his stance on liquefied natural gas. The governor withdrew his support for a long-debated LNG project currently under construction at the Port of Tacoma, as well as a methanol plant in Kalama that was once proposed for Tacoma.
ALSO at The Stand — Inslee chooses climate optics over balance (by WSLC President Larry Brown)
THAT WASHINGTON
ALSO at The Stand — America needs action on nation’s infrastructure, not more talk (by Thomas Donohoe and Richard Trumka)
► In today’s Washington Post — Confidential draft IRS memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless president invokes executive privilege — The memo contradicts the Trump administration’s justification for denying lawmakers’ request for his tax returns, exposing fissures in the executive branch.
► From HuffPost — Trump’s golf costs: $102 million and counting, with taxpayers picking up the tab — Trump promised never to golf. Instead, he’s spent more than twice as many days golfing as Obama at the same point, costing taxpayers over three times as much.
NATIONAL
► From Bloomberg — Southwest Airlines mechanics ratify deal after six years of talks — Southwest Airlines mechanics (Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association) approved a new contract that provides pay increases and a retroactive bonus, closing out more than six years of negotiations that included a lawsuit and an alleged worker slowdown.
► From the People’s World — Connecticut joins $15 minimum wage states parade — By overwhelming votes in both houses of the legislature, Connecticut became the fourth state this year to join the parade of those raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Adding it to the others – New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland – plus 16 other states and 40 cities means 30.6% of minimum wage workers in the U.S. will now have higher minimums than the federal level of $7.25 hourly.
► From Insider NJ — NJ labor leader John Costa chosen to serve as ATU international president — With the untimely and tragic passing of ATU International President Larry Hanley, the ATU General Executive Board has chosen International Vice President John Costa to serve as ATU International President until the next ATU Convention set for September 2019.
► In the Buffalo News — Women’s hockey players form union, say they are prepared to sit out year — Women’s hockey players have formed a union, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, their next step following an announcement by more than 200 players that they will not compete in North America next season. The goal is to develop a “sustainable league that will showcase their talent,” the union said.
TODAY’S MUST-READ
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.