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Hate’s not welcome ● NLRB vs. grad students ● ‘How dare you’

Monday, September 23, 2019

 

FREEDOM FOUNDATION PROTEST

 

► THANK YOU to the many union members and community supporters who attended the protest against white supremacist and Fox News talking head Laura Ingraham and the Freedom Foundation on Saturday outside the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. You sent a strong message that their hate is not welcome in Washington!

► From KING 5 News — Union groups protest outside Freedom Foundation event in Bellevue — The Freedom Foundation held their annual fundraiser Saturday and invited Fox News’ Laura Ingraham to give a keynote address.

 

LOCAL

 

► In the (Vancouver) Columbian — Grocery workers union calls for Fred Meyer boycott — A union representing thousands of grocery workers has called for a boycott of Fred Meyer stores in Southwest Washington and Oregon. UFCW Local 555 called for the boycott Sunday in a news release. The announcement comes after 15 months of labor negotiations.

ALSO at The Stand — UFCW 555 calls for Fred Meyer boycott in Oregon, SW Wash. — The union is NOT calling for a boycott of Fred Meyer throughout Washington. Some 30,000 grocery workers in 12 counties around the Puget Sound who are represented by UFCW 21 are in separate negotiations for a fair contract agreement. See the list of stores in Washington state that are affected by UFCW 555’s call for a boycott.

► In the Spokesman-Review — Sacred Heart nurses: Providence pursuing maximum profit at expense of local workers (by WSNA RNs David Emerson and Clint Wallace) — The nurses at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center still don’t have a contract after 13 negotiating sessions. We don’t have a contract because Providence, an out-of-town corporation, is determined to pursue maximum profit at the expense of its staff and steadfastly refuses our common-sense proposals to keep patients and nurses safe. The Seattle suits are pushing a corporate template on Providence-owned hospitals up and down the West Coast: Slash earned sick time, earned paid time off and other benefits nurses have earned – some over many years of service.

► In the (Longview) Daily News — Wrongful death case over Longview longshoreman making progress — A lawsuit filed by the widow of a longshoreman killed when a mooring line snapped at the Port of Longview last year is on track for trial next year — if it isn’t settled earlier, a lawyer for the plaintiff said last week.

► From KING 5 TV — Food workers give no-confidence vote in Seattle Public Schools nutrition chief — The union representing Seattle Public Schools food service workers (IUOE 609) said it has lost confidence in the district’s nutrition chief. The union has roughly 250 members and said it is struggling to meet the nutritional demands of the new school year. They point the finger at Nutrition Service Director Aaron Smith, who took over last year.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Small tax on Uber, Lyft rides will help drivers and housing affordability (by Marty Kooistra, Nicole Grant, and Alex Hudson) — Mayor Jenny Durkan just responded with proposed legislation that will provide worker protections for thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers; increase investment in transportation projects; and provide more affordable housing near transit for low-wage workers. This is an opportunity to leverage our city’s growth and ensure essential labor standards while also tackling the two biggest cost burdens for low-wage households: housing and transportation.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Seattle may have never had a brand-new mother as a City Council member. Soon, it’ll have two. — Teresa Mosqueda had read about Seattle’s child care crunch — the excruciating wait-lists and the eye-popping costs. Then she became pregnant. “To see it in a report is one thing,” the City Council member said. “To call through a list of providers that the city gave me and hit a dead end and then go to Google and just search ‘child care’ … is a whole other experience.” That whole other experience is what she and Councilmember M. Lorena González are carrying with them at City Hall as they pursue policies meant to help new mothers and babies, including child care-compatible development, child care subsidies and workplace changes. As the council’s only at-large members, representing all Seattle, Mosqueda and González are among City Hall’s most influential leaders.

 

BOEING

 

► In the Charleston Post and Courier —  NLRB’s Boeing SC rule doesn’t follow labor law (by IAM President Robert Martinez) — Democracy was denied when the NLRB overturned a majority vote by 178 Boeing South Carolina flight line workers to join the IAM. The board’s 3-1 decision, including two members with previous ties to Boeing, and over a powerful dissent, overturns an NLRB regional director’s carefully reasoned decision and is flatly inconsistent with the federal labor law…(This decision) does not end a growing need for collective representation at Boeing South Carolina. The IAM is not giving up, and neither are Boeing workers in the Lowcountry.

► From Reuters — Boeing bid for Embraer unit faces EU antitrust probe — Boeing is set to face a EU antitrust investigation of up to five months into its bid for a controlling stake in the commercial aircraft arm of Brazil’s Embraer, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

 

ELECTION

 

► In the Spokesman-Review — Confusing affirmative action initiative a product of long back-and-forth about best way to afford opportunity (by Jim Camden) — Initiative 1000 allows affirmative action programs or procedures like participation goals and outreach efforts that “do not utilize quotas and do not constitute preferential treatment.” Those programs can consider race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, honorable military discharge or military status as a factor in selecting qualified people. But that can’t be the sole factor, the initiative says.

ALSO at The Stand — WA Fairness explains why voters should approve I-1000 / R88 — Last year, nearly 400,000 voters petitioned lawmakers to support I-1000 to restore fairness and opportunity to Washington’s public employment, contracting, and education enrollment policies. Under I-1000, quotas and preferential treatment would remain prohibited, but it would allow outreach and recruitment of veterans, women, minorities and others who are too often left behind in government hiring, contracting and education. The Washington State Legislature passed I-1000, but now voters must also approve it.

 

THAT WASHINGTON

 

► In the Washington Post — NLRB reverses course on graduate students’ right to organize as employees — The Republican-controlled NLRB issued a rule Friday that denies teaching and research assistants at private universities legal protection to form unions, retreating from a 2016 decision that cleared the way for collective bargaining at some of the nation’s elite schools. The proposed regulation asserts that graduate workers are students above all else, not employees of their universities, even if they assist in teaching courses and research that benefits schools. The argument aligns with the position of many of the Ivy League universities that say the work graduate students do is a part of their training and education.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This▲ will lead to more of this▼.

► In the Boston Globe — Harvard Graduate Students Union threatens strike — Unionized graduate students at Harvard University could soon walk off their campus teaching and research jobs if negotiators for the Ivy League institution don’t budge on issues of pay, benefits, and protections for discrimination and harassment, union officials said Saturday.

► In today’s NY Times — As Trump confirms he discussed Biden with Ukraine, pressure to impeach builds — Trump acknowledged on Sunday that he raised corruption accusations against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a phone call with Ukraine’s leader, a stunning admission as pressure mounted on Democrats to impeach Trump over allegations he leaned on a foreign government to help damage a political rival.

► In the Washington Post — ‘He ignores the law when he doesn’t like it’ — Bribery. Corrupt dealings with foreign officials. Foreign influence in an American election. If President Trump promised the leader of Ukraine something valuable in exchange for an investigation of the activities of Joe Biden’s son, legal experts say, his actions may violate any of several criminal statutes. But because he is the president, Trump critics and supporters alike agree that any judgment about his behavior is likely to come not in a courtroom but in the court of public opinion — and, perhaps, the halls of Congress.

 

NATIONAL

 

► In today’s Detroit News — GM strike, day 8: Negotiators at the table as walkout enters week two — The talks continued following a “Solidarity Sunday” that brought out hundreds of supporters to the picket lines, including Democratic presidential candidates.

ALSO TODAY at The Stand — Sign open letter of support for UAW strikers

► In today’s Detroit Free Press — As UAW strike enters second week, losses growing for workers, GM and the nation — As the UAW strike against General Motors enters its second week Monday, the damage to the Michigan and U.S. economies is growing.

► In the Pittsburgh City Paper — Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor’s vote to unionize — Last month, more than 66 percent of Google tech contractors signed cards to hold a vote on whether to create a labor union at HCL Technologies, the contracting firm that works with Google’s offices in Pittsburgh. This is a fairly impressive feat considering the tech industry has virtually no labor unions. But with the union vote of HCL’s 90 employees set for Tuesday, it’s still unclear which way the tech workers will vote, seeing as there are significant anti-union efforts up against them.

 

TODAY’S MUST-SEE

 

 

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

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