NEWS ROUNDUP
Boeing reboots ● Privatizing our postal service ● Bosses get paid
Monday, December 30, 2019
The Entire Staff of The Stand has been gone for a couple weeks and missed some news. (Apparently, Muilenburg is out and Marshawn is in.) Today and tomorrow we’ll attempt to catch you (and ourselves) up on what we have missed as 2019 winds to a close.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
TODAY at The Stand — New year brings paid leave, wage increases in Washington
► From KNKX — Washington state workers can now receive paid family and medical leave benefits — Employees in Washington state who qualify will be able to receive up to 12 weeks of paid leave to stay home with a newborn or a foster or adopted child. They’ll also be able to receive paid leave or to care for a spouse, domestic partner or family member with a serious illness. And the law lets workers receive paid time off to be with a family member who’s active duty military and is home from a deployment overseas.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Washington state’s “strongest in the nation” overtime threshold will begin to phase in on July 1, 2020, with an increase to 1.25 times the state minimum wage, roughly matching the federal increase from Jan. 1. But beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, it will surpass the federal threshold and continue to increase each year until reaching 2.5 times the state minimum wage.
► From CNN — 24 states will raise minimum wage in 2020
EDITOR’S NOTE — The Washington state minimum wage rises to $13.50 an hour on Jan. 1.
MORE local coverage of Washington’s minimum wage increase in the (Everett) Herald and the(Spokane) Spokesman-Review.
BOEING
► In the Seattle Times — Boeing 737 MAX production halt ripples out as supplier Spirit stops fuselage work, United delays MAX flights until June
ALSO see responses from IAM 751 and SPEEA.
► In the Seattle Times — Lawmakers, analysts welcome Muilenburg’s departure from Boeing as positive step
► In the Seattle Times — Top Boeing attorney who oversaw 737 MAX legal fallout to retire — J. Michael Luttig, 65, who served as counselor and senior adviser to CEO Dennis Muilenburg before the latter was fired Monday by Boeing’s board of directors, will retire.
► In the Seattle Times — Boeing documents sent to House committee called ‘very disturbing’ — Internal documents newly provided by Boeing to a U.S. House committee investigating two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX appear to portray a “very disturbing picture” of safety concerns raised by some employees and efforts by others to evade regulators, a spokeswoman for the committee said Tuesday, Dec. 24.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing’s 737 MAX crisis leaves it badly behind in ‘arms race’ for next decade’s jets — As Boeing’s new leaders struggle to recover control, they face crucial decisions about developing new airplanes while they cope with depleted financial resources, a distracted engineering corps and a loss of Boeing’s previous strategic advantage against rival Airbus. They’ll also face pressure to reverse a two-decadeslong decline in the company’s historic culture of engineering prowess, which many blame for the MAX disaster… Stan Sorscher, a former Boeing and SPEEA analyst, said Boeing won’t succeed at that next new airplane unless its leaders can reassert its legacy engineering standards.
LOCAL
► In the News Tribune — Tacoma grocery distribution workers face uncertain future as executives collect bonuses — 2019 has become a year where laid-off Supervalu/UNFI workers face an uncertain future in their labor fight with the company while UNFI’s CEO and other top executives saw six-figure bonuses approved by the company’s board and shareholders. It’s also been a year that saw more than 100 years of employment history leave Tacoma for a new era in food distribution… UNFI has appealed a labor arbitrator’s decision that ruled in favor of the workers and for UNFI to honor the Tacoma workers’ contracts at the nonunion Centralia site. Says Teamsters Local 117: “We have a legally sound arbitration decision that supports our position that those layoffs are unlawful. If we prevail in the case, and we believe that we will, over 200 of our members will be entitled to a significant back-pay award.”
ALSO at The Stand — Clark College faculty union votes to authorize strike (Dec. 9)
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — 2020: Light rail, ferry terminal and possible transit merger — The major transportation stories to track in the coming year involve Everett, Lynnwood and Mukilteo.
THIS WASHINGTON
► In today’s Seattle Times — With the loss of Referendum 88, affirmative-action advocates wonder what’s next. Inslee offers some answers. — In a campaign full of charged politics and emotional arguments over race and equity, the statewide measure lost by 1 point. That made it one of the most closely decided ballot measures in recent times and left affirmative-action advocates weighing how they might still achieve at least some of their goals, even as Washington remains one of just eight states to have outlawed affirmative action. Some Democratic state lawmakers and Gov. Jay Inslee now want to find other ways to improve equity without the affirmative-action measure.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Amid serious violations at Washington’s private psychiatric hospitals, a regulator remained on the sidelines — Over five years, Medicaid and other state payments to five private psychiatric hospitals nearly tripled, totaling almost $67 million in 2018. In more than a dozen inspections since 2016, state and federal regulators found violations at four private psychiatric hospitals that were serious enough to warrant termination from Medicare, though they stopped short of doing so.
THAT WASHINGTON
ALSO at The Stand — Say NO to privatizer as Postmaster General
► In the Amsterdam News — Trump appointed NLRB appointees are making it harder for workers, labor fights back — Several recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board would make it harder for workers to unionize. However, labor unions refused to take these decisions lying down.
► From HuffPost — The campaign against ‘Medicare For All’ is spending millions. Progressives not so much. — The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future ― an industry front group representing private health insurers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies ― has spent at least $1 million in television advertisements blasting the policy in Iowa alone. The spending against Medicare for All has not been matched by any progressive outside groups.
NATIONAL
► From Business Insider — The massive GM strike is a perfect example of our political moment and a harbinger of the coming battles between labor and corporations (by Margarida Jorge) — According to Gallup, union approval is at a near 50-year high, with 64% of Americans approving of labor unions. That more than half of the country approves of unions not only signals organized labor’s enduring strength, but also highlights growing public recognition that we need unions today more than ever. The UAW strike of General Motors — one of the most successful union movements of the year — is evidence that workers can leverage increased strength through unions. The successful strike showed many across the country that joining unions and demanding essential benefits like healthcare and higher wages is well worth the fight.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Tired of being disrespected? Get a union! Find out more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate a fair return for your hard work. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!
TODAY’S MUST-READ
The truth is, American corporations are sacrificing workers and communities as never before, in order to further boost record profits and unprecedented CEO pay. The only way to make corporations socially responsible is through laws requiring them to be. The only way to get such laws enacted is by reducing corporate power and getting big money out of politics. The first step is to see corporate social responsibility for the con it is.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.