NEWS ROUNDUP

Trump’s training cuts ● ACA is still working ● Corporate Cathy vs. unions

Monday, June 3, 2019

LOCAL

► From Willamette Week — Trump administration to close Forest Service job training centers ahead of wildfire season: “It’s a slap in the face” — On May 24, the Trump administration announced it will close nine Forest Service vocation centers that train disadvantaged youth in wildfire fighting and other rural jobs. The Timber Lake Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center in Estacada, Ore., and the Fort Simcoe CCC near Yakima are two centers that will shutter in September.

► From The Stranger — Art Workers Union forms at the Frye Art Museum — Friday morning the Art Workers Union gathered in front of the Frye Art Museum’s main entrance to call for the board of directors and CEO Joseph Rosa to voluntarily recognize the newly formed union, which consists of the Frye’s security staff.

► In the Seattle Times — Don’t derail Sound Transit 3, Seattle (editorial) — The megaproject just missed a key deadline, potentially threatening its schedule, because of Seattle politicking over light-rail routes, tunnels and stations.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Waterfront faceoff: ‘This doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game’ — Two companies promise to bring Seattle maritime business, but the Port of Everett has other ideas.

BOEING

► In the Seattle Times — More than 300 Boeing 737s to be inspected for faulty parts — The FAA issued a statement alerting airlines and international aviation regulators that certain wing parts on more than 300 Boeing 737s may have been improperly manufactured and must be replaced within 10 days.

THIS WASHINGTON

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — School districts can collect more taxes, but will they try? — School districts will be able to collect more money from local property taxes next year. Not every one in Snohomish County will. And those that do probably won’t need voters’ permission because they already got it.

► In the Seattle Times — As controversial Washington methanol plant moves along, opposing group criticizes one lawmaker’s role — State Rep. Richard DeBolt (R-Chehalis) says a proposed $2 billion methanol-production facility in his Southwest Washington district could simultaneously cut global greenhouse-gas emissions and create good jobs in a region largely locked out of the Puget Sound’s economic boom. DeBolt is also director of external relations with Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW), the company pushing the proposal. It’s a perfectly legal situation in Washington’s part-time Legislature, where public service and private jobs often co-exist.

ALSO at The Stand — With flip-flop, Gov. Inslee chooses climate optics over balance (by Larry Brown) — The governor’s about-face on supporting the Tacoma and Kalama projects is a setback for labor-environmental efforts.

► In the Bellingham Herald — Here’s how Whatcom political parties are addressing #MeToo after Bonner, Ranker troubles — Leaders of the two major political parties in Whatcom County are asking candidates they support to develop a code of conduct in the wake of recent incidents that forced a Democratic state senator to resign and derailed the campaign of a former Republican official.

THAT WASHINGTON

► In the Tampa Bay Times — U.S. House should pass Dream and Promise Act (by DACA recipient Nanci Palacios) — DACA doesn’t just help me give back to my family. I also give back to the economy. As a group, more than 1.2 million young immigrants who are eligible for DACA generate $23.4 billion in household income annually, $4 billion of which goes to state, local and federal taxes.

ALSO at The Stand — Congress to vote on Dream and Promise Act — All Democrats from Washington state support protections for Dreamers and TPS immigrants. Will any GOP members?

► In the Washington Post — ACA linked to reduced racial disparities, earlier diagnosis and treatment in cancer care — Proponents of the embattled Affordable Care Act got additional ammunition Sunday: New research links the law to a reduction in racial disparities in the care of cancer patients and to earlier diagnoses and treatment of ovarian cancer, one of the most dangerous malignancies. According to researchers, before the ACA went into effect, African Americans with advanced cancer were 4.8 percentage points less likely to start treatment for their disease within 30 days of being given a diagnosis. But today, black adults in states that expanded Medicaid under the law have almost entirely caught up with white patients in getting timely treatment, researchers said.

NATIONAL

► From The Sun — Delta Airlines tried to ‘trap’ overworked flight attendants on delayed plane to stop a walkout — Airline officials have been accused of trying to “trap” their own overworked flight attendants on a delayed plane to stop a walkout. Doors were allegedly closed on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Toronto on May 12 after the flight was grounded for three-and-a half-hours.

ALSO at The Stand — From insulting to illegal: IAM files charges against Delta Air Lines

► From Politico — Labor anger over Green New Deal greets 2020 contenders in California — Blue-collar union workers in solidly Democratic California are rejecting “Green New Deal” politics, a possible preview of troubles for 2020 presidential hopefuls in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From The Intercept — Conservatives pushed a strategy to weaken home health care unions. The Trump administration bit. — Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a new rule barring home health care workers from paying union dues through their Medicaid-funded wages. The new Department of Health and Human Services rule, which will impact more than 800,000 workers and was immediately met with a legal challenge, followed years of planning by anti-union activists to promote such measures in states across the country, and, more recently, on the federal level.

On an invitation-only call with donors last June, leaders with the State Policy Network — a corporate-backed umbrella group of right-wing think tanks across the country (that includes the Freedom Foundation) — raised the issue of directly deducting union dues from Medicaid-funded paychecks. Vinnie Vernuccio, a labor policy adviser to the State Policy Network told donors that its plan was to end this practice by getting “an administrative rule passed at Health and Human Services” and passing federal legislation with the assistance of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-5th).

The legislation has not yet come — despite a promise from McMorris Rodgers announced at the start of 2018 that she would introduce a bill to this effect. The Department of Health and Human Services, however, announced less than two months after the call that it would consider amending its Obama-era rule, which it ultimately did this May.

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