Friday, July 19, 2019

LOCAL

► In today’s Seattle Times — T-Mobile’s brash CEO sprints to top of best-paid leaders at Pacific Northwest companies — The five highest paid CEOs in the Pacific Northwest in 2018 had two things in common. They’re all men (a woman CEO doesn’t show up until No. 15). They all made a lot more money in 2018 than they did the year before — in some cases, a whole lot more. That was certainly the case for the man who topped the list: John Legere, CEO of Bellevue-based T-Mobile US, who got a 2018 compensation package worth $66.5 million.

ALSO at The Stand — Rich CEOs get richer, unlike the rest of us — Legere was paid 1,116 times the median employee pay at his company.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Northwest CEOs saw a lopsided bump in equity pay — The average CEO compensation package in the Pacific Northwest jumped by 35 percent over 2017, to $4.81 million. That increase was far more than the average worker saw — a discrepancy that will only add fuel to the controversy over what some critics refer to as “runaway” CEO pay. But there was another part to the compensation story in 2018 — a less visible part, perhaps, but arguably the more important one. In nearly all cases, the bulk of the huge increases in 2018 came in the form of equity — company stock or “options” to buy stock — a pattern that is increasingly common across the corporate world.

► In today’s Tri-City Herald — Benton County workers picket as salary negotiations stall — Stalled contract negotiations between Benton County and the union that represents 110 courthouse employees are headed to mediation. Negotiators for the county and the Washington State Council of County and City Employees Local 874HC will meet with a mediator next week. County employees conducted information pickets throughout the day Thursday to draw attention to the impasse. Salary demands are the main sticking point.

BOEING

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing faces largest quarterly loss in its history after a $4.9 billion financial hit — Girding to compensate its worldwide airline customers for delayed deliveries and disrupted schedules, Boeing on Thursday bit the bullet and announced a $4.9 billion after-tax accounting charge for the ongoing grounding of the 737 MAX jet. This huge hit to earnings will produce the biggest quarterly loss in Boeing’s history when it reports its financial results next week… In arriving at the multibillion-dollar charge figure, Boeing said it “assumed approval of 737 MAX return to service in the U.S. and other jurisdictions begins early in the fourth quarter 2019.

► From Bloomberg — FAA has no timeline for lifting grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max — U.S. aviation regulators have no timeline for returning Boeing’s grounded 737 Max to service and won’t act until they are sure it is safe, the nation’s top transportation official said.

THIS WASHINGTON

► In today’s Columbian — Ballots on way for Aug. 6 primary vote — Ballots are on their way to registered voters, capping an unusually busy primary season in local politics.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This primary election involves mostly city and county races, so union voters should check with their regional Central Labor Councils to find out which candidates have earned labor’s endorsement. Voters in the 40th Legislative District in San Juan County and parts of Skagit and Whatcom counties should know that the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO has endorsed Washington State Sen. Liz Lovelett (D-Anacortes) in her bid to retain that Senate seat in that special election. She was appointed to the Senate in February following the resignation of Sen. Kevin Ranker. Learn more.

ALSO at The Stand — Labor walk for Sen. Liz Lovelett on Saturday

► From Crosscut — As Seattle gets closer to an income tax, state Republicans work to stop it — State Sen. Steve O’Ban (R-Tacoma) is urging Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson to step in to defend the income-tax prohibition, which Washington lawmakers originally approved in 1984. O’Ban asked Ferguson to intervene in the case, which is expected to be taken up by the state Supreme Court.

► From KNKX — Statewide group deploys ‘trusted messengers’ so nobody is left uncounted in 2020 census — The count doesn’t begin for several months, but organizations are already getting the word out about the importance of taking part. Washington Census Alliance Manager Kamau Chege says his group has focused specifically on populations that are historically undercounted, including people of color.

► From The Bulletin — Oregon ballot initiative would limit self-checkout — A ballot initiative filed Thursday would limit Oregon grocery stores to two self-checkout stations. The Oregon AFL-CIO filed the “Grocery Store Service and Community Protection Act” with the Secretary of State’s office in hopes of having ballot language certified in time for the November 2020 election. “It’s about jobs,” said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain. Pumping one’s own gas is illegal in most of Oregon for the same reason, he said. Chamberlain added that the loss of cashier positions to self-service affects women and minorities, who are disproportionately employed in those jobs. The union’s proposed ballot language lists 10 findings, from self-service contributing to social isolation to a decrease in customer service.

THE PRESIDENT IS A RACIST

► In today’s Washington Post — Trump supporters’ newest rallying cry — ‘Send her back!’— reverberates across a nation fraught with racial tension — After days of inflaming the nation’s racial tensions, President Trump stood before a mostly white crowd of supporters Wednesday and observed what he had wrought. “Send her back! Send her back!” the crowd chanted as Trump looked on silently for 13 seconds, basking in the response to his attacks on a Somali-born Muslim congresswoman whom he had accused of supporting terrorists and hating America. The new rallying cry of Trump’s supporters unleashed emotional responses from people across the country, with some outraged by and others supportive of the president’s latest polarizing act.

► In today’s NY Times — Trump disavows ‘send her back’ chant as GOP frets over ugly phrase — Nervous Republicans, from senior members of Congress to his own daughter Ivanka, urged Trump to repudiate the “send her back” chant directed at a Somali-born congresswoman during his speech the night before at a rally in North Carolina.

► From TPM — Trump suddenly doesn’t seem so sorry about the ‘send her back’ chant — Not even 24 hours after telling reporters that he was “not happy” with the “send her back” chant against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at his reelection rally earlier this week, Trump on Friday seemed to be more onboard with the widely condemned message.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Here’s Rep. Ilhan Omar getting a hero’s welcome in her district (accompanied by our own Rep. Pramila Jayapal) to chants of “Welcome home, Ilhan!”

Congresswoman Omar just arrived back in the Twin Cities. pic.twitter.com/ZiFqWnDJgQ

— Tom Hauser (@thauserkstp) July 18, 2019

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — U.S. Rep. Larsen: Time to impeach President Trump — Everett’s congressman says Trump’s attack on four female colleagues denigrates the meaning of citizenship.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Trump’s attacks warrant his impeachment (by Rep. Rick Larsen) — I made the decision to call for impeachment after the president’s statement that some members of Congress should go back to the countries they came from. It is clear from this message that the president has no understanding of what it means to be a U.S. citizen, what it takes to become a citizen, or what it means to the people of the world to strive for the dream of being an American.

► MUST-READ in today’s NY Times — Send me back to the country I came from (by Timothy Egan) — For me, as with more than 30 million other Americans with my hyphenate, that’s tiny Ireland, the country once so infested with crime, famine, disease and assorted horrors of foreignness that its British overlords said a merciful God was doing a favor by killing off the starving masses… (It) is now a land of universal health care… colleges nearly free to its citizens — good colleges, at that. Imagine, a family not having to bankrupt itself to help a child off to a better life… That 19th-century hellhole has become a 21st-century heaven. The Irish have become us — what we wanted and aspired to. They are living our national narrative, a country open to those fleeing oppressors and lack of opportunity. Its prime minister would never gloat over a “send her back” chant at a hatefest directed at new members of the republic. Back home in America, the unimaginable is the new norm: a fully blossoming fascism. We’re stuck in a hideous loop of hate. But it’s also an idiocy loop. Why are we arguing about something any second grader has already settled after looking around the classroom and realizing that nearly every other child is a descendant of someone from a foreign land?

THAT WASHINGTON

► In today’s NY Times — House passes bill to raise minimum wage to $15, a victory for liberals — The House voted Thursday to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, delivering a long-sought victory to liberals and putting the Democratic Party’s official imprimatur on the so-called Fight for $15, which many Democratic presidential candidates have embraced.

ALSO at The Stand — House Dems OK $15 minimum wage but Senate GOP vows to kill it

► From KTVZ — Merkley co-sponsors clean-energy jobs bill — Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka unveiled the Good Jobs for 21st Century Energy Act on Thursday, major new legislation to create good-paying jobs in the transition to clean energy. “This is the right bill at the right time to fight climate change and create the kind of family-sustaining jobs our country is desperate for,” Trumka said. “For too long, the corporate right-wing—the polluters and the union-busters—conspired together to create a false choice: a raising wages economy or a clean environment. We can and must have both.”

ALSO at The Stand — Labor-environment alliance still strong, getting major wins (by Larry Brown)

► In today’s NY Times — Trump to nominate Eugene Scalia for Labor Secretary job — Thursday that he would name Eugene Scalia as his next secretary of labor, tapping the longtime labor lawyer and son of the former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia for a position with vast responsibility over the American work force. The appointment is likely to be contested by Democrats and labor unions because Scalia has a long record of representing Walmart and other companies that pushed back against unions and tougher labor laws.

► From FEDweek — Many possible roads ahead in executive orders fight — Federal unions say they will continue to fight three Trump administration orders on union and disciplinary matters in light of an appeals court ruling that the dispute belongs before the FLRA rather than in the federal courts, at least at this point. The course is unclear for the present, however; the unions say they are looking at their options, most of which could stretch out the case for months at least.

► In today’s Washington Post — Trump’s new asylum rule will guarantee more separated families (by Lindsey M. Harris) — This new rule is extreme, even by the standards Trump has set. First, asylum seekers will be forced into even deadlier conditions than they are now. Current conditions are already deadly enough: Two Honduran boys were murdered in a migrant camp on the Mexican side of the border in December while waiting for their chance to seek asylum. A 3-year-old girl with a heart condition was forced to choose between her parents after having already been sent back to Mexico twice. One asylum-seeking woman was returned to Mexico and kidnapped by a drug cartel, and another was kidnapped and raped in Juarez. But now the administration expects Central Americans to file for protection in Mexico’s overburdened asylum system while still facing whatever dangers prompted them to flee home — along with new vulnerability to violence related to being an asylum-seeker in Mexico. And this rule will rip even more families apart.

NATIONAL

► From Bloomberg — Organize 100,000 new workers in 5 years? UNITE HERE says it will — Organize, fight, win contracts. Repeat. That was the central message UNITE HERE left hundreds of delegates during its three-day constitutional convention in Las Vegas last week. The union, one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most militant, carried that philosophy to the ambitious goals it set for itself over the next five years. UNITE HERE President D. Taylor said his union would organize 100,000 new workers by the time it met again for another convention in 2024. It’s an almost unprecedented goal for the 300,000-member union that would represent a roughly 33% growth rate.

T.G.I.F.

► This song, written and produced by Nick Lowe, appeared on Elvis Costello and The Attractions’ Armed Forces album 40 years ago — and the Entire Staff of The Stand really needed it this week.

Modern Drummer writes, “A beautiful thing happens on this song, common to many early Attractions songs. It’s that feeling that the track could derail, when in reality (drummer Pete) Thomas has everything locked down. He does a lot of playing here without overplaying. Like most Attractions songs from that era, this was cut live, full-band and lead vocal. That’s probably why so many years later, it still sounds so energized and inspired.”

The lip syncing in this video is a little less inspired but we wanted to share the studio recording because it’s so powerful — as is the message. Crank. This. Up.

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