Sacred Heart’s scabs | Boeing: No 787 safety risk | Dr. Union

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

LOCAL

► From the Spokesman-Review — Providence Sacred Heart tech workers to strike next week, hospital hires temporary workers to stay open — Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center’s technical workers have submitted notice to strike beginning next Monday as contract negotiations stall. The weeklong strike will take place from April 22-30, should a deal not be reached before next week. UFCW 3000 represents approximately 500 Sacred Heart employees such as surgery and pharmacy technicians. If the strike moves forward, Providence officials say they will hire other workers so hospital operations are not disrupted.

► From KING — Roadway to SEA Airport reopens after pro-Palestine protest; 46 people arrested — The arrivals and departures were fully blocked for nearly three hours Monday afternoon.

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing says no 787 safety risk after whistleblower raises troubling claims — At its 787 Dreamliner manufacturing complex on Monday, Boeing responded to damaging new whistleblower allegations by detailing the results of testing it has done since small gaps between fuselage pieces on the jets were discovered four years ago. Boeing has made meticulous, time-consuming changes to the way it manufactures the 787’s carbon composite airframe to eliminate the gaps. It must do so to meet the specification.

► From NPR — Boeing challenges whistleblower allegations, details how airframes are put together — Two Boeing engineering executives went into detail Monday to describe how panels are fitted together, particularly on the 787 Dreamliner. They suggested the 787’s carbon-composite skin is nearly impervious to metal fatigue that weakens conventional aluminum fuselages.

► From Forbes — Why a Boeing 797 revival should be Boeing’s new $50 billion plane (by Marisa Garcia) — While Boeing’s top priority must be to regain the confidence of airlines, regulators and the flying public, the manufacturer must find an engineering slot for this aircraft soon. As Aviation Week’s Executive Editor, Commercial Aviation, Jens Flottau, said following the Boeing leadership shake-up:

“They can barely afford it now, they can also barely afford not to do this. One element that we also need to talk about is engineering skills. If you wait too long, a lot of the engineers will retire, will go away. You will lose the ability to develop new aircraft if you don’t do that soon enough.”

THAT WASHINGTON

Today @MSHA_DOL issued a final rule to better protect all miners from respirable crystalline silica dust. It lowers miners’ exposure limit for silica dust with uniform standards for both coal mines and metal and nonmetal mines. https://t.co/ukvyCI3oSC pic.twitter.com/ST3Wf2xGE7

— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) April 16, 2024

► From the AP — New rules for Pregnant Workers Fairness Act include divisive accommodations for abortion — Workers are entitled to time off and other job accommodations for abortions — along with pregnancy-related medical conditions like miscarriage, stillbirth and lactation — under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, according to finalized federal regulations published Monday. The regulations providing guidance for employers and workers on how to implement the law also includes language that workers can ask for time off to obtain an abortion and recover from the procedure.

► From the Washington Post — The IRS’s new tax software: Rave reviews, but low turnout — The Biden administration marked the close of tax season Monday by announcing it had met a modest goal of getting at least 100,000 taxpayers to file through the Internal Revenue Service’s new tax software, Direct File — an alternative to commercial tax preparers.

From the STAND (Mar. 13) — Washingtonians: File taxes for free with IRS Direct File

From The STAND (Apr. 15) — Don’t forget about the Working Families Tax Credit

► From the Washington Post — Supreme Court arguments in Jan. 6 case that may impact Trump, rioters (live updates) — The Supreme Court is taking up a challenge today to a federal law prosecutors used to charge more than 350 people who were part of the pro-Donald Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

► From the AP — Justice Thomas returns to Supreme Court after 1-day absence — Thomas has ignored calls from some progressive groups to step aside from cases involving Jan. 6 because his wife, Ginni, is a right-wing activist who attended then-President Trump’s rally near the White House before protesters descended on the Capitol.

► From the AP — First pool of prospective jurors pared down in day two of Trump hush money trial (live updates)

NATIONAL

► From Axios — America’s newest doctors fuel efforts to unionize — A new generation of doctors struggling with ever-increasing workloads and crushing student debt is helping drive unionization efforts in a profession that historically hasn’t organized. Physicians in training, like their peers in other industries, increasingly see unions as a way to boost their pay and protect themselves against grueling working conditions as they launch their careers. It also comes amid a wave of unionization and labor actions by nurses and other caregivers across a health care system that’s still dealing with high levels of burnout.

READY FOR A VOICE AT WORK? Get more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate for better wages and working conditions. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!

► From the St. Louis Labor Tribune — Another group of St. Louis Public Radio employees file to organize despite U of M resistance — The St. Louis Public Radio Guild announced it has filed for a second election to add the radio station’s non-supervisory fundraising, events and support staff to its ranks. The St. Louis Public Radio Guild already organized the 37 newsroom workers. 

► From the Washington Post — Amazon HQ2 was supposed to add jobs last year. It shed them instead. — Following a much-hyped sweepstakes across North America several years ago, the tech giant made a deal with state and local officials to locate half of its “HQ2″ in Arlington, just outside D.C. in exchange for as much as $750 million in taxpayer subsidies from Virginia.

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