Hmm. My respect for unions is butting heads with my disdain for the Seattle Times.

Support the employees, don’t support the ownership and editorial decisions, I suppose. Paying them less certainly won’t make the newspaper better.

Definitely don’t tax rich people. Let’s cut public service jobs. But don’t worry, it’s all voluntary. Unless they say no. Then they’re fired.

Did an employee whisper “union” while on shift?

The QFC near me just installed digital price tags, presumably getting ready to roll this out. Fucking surge pricing on food.

“Exploitative Industry Exploits People. More at 11. Here’s Tom with the weather”

My only hope is that his plan is to come in, make a big splash, improve his coveted test scores, and use that as leverage to get a different job. If his plan is to stick around and actually implement the big changes he’s talking about, the district is in trouble.

Why?

This is a good thing. Unless there’s a poison pill in the contract, of course. SEA probably doesn’t have the political capital to withstand an extended strike. Especially with the new dickhead superintendent going full bore media blitz framing this as the fault of greedy, incompetent teachers and bloated unions.

KOMO is Sinclair. Anybody who isn’t familiar with Sinclair Broadcasting needs to look it up. Basically an ultra-conservative media conglomerate that bought up an incredible number of local news affiliates, and is now using them to subtly move the needle towards fascism.

KIRO is CBS. CBS got bought by the Ellison family, strong Trump allies. Pretty much the entire leadership structure got fired or resigned, leaving it firmly in the grasp of authoritarian shitheads. They’re transitioning slowly, but you can’t trust their perspective on most anything anymore.

These news outlets, like so many across the country, have been co-opted by right-wing sycophants.

Yeah, the district’s proposal was bad enough to qualify as bad faith. Take money away from special ed departments and funnel it into HCC programs. Increase student-teacher ratios, especially in struggling schools. Focus more on standardized testing. Basically undo the steps that we’ve been taking to try to undo the massive inequality in our district.

Oh, and it includes a pay raise that’s less than inflation. So pay the teachers less to do more work in order to help the kids that need the least help. Way to go, SuperBen.

As far as I can tell, none of them want to strike. However, contract is up and negotiations aren’t going well. Last I saw the district hasn’t even offered a tentative agreement, so the teachers don’t even have anything to vote on. There are only 3 bargaining meetings left on the schedule and voting is supposed to happen next week. The new superintendent is on the bargaining team (possibly in charge) and has admitted that he hasn’t even read the existing contract.

Disclaimer: not a teacher, just in the loop.

Sigh. Just fade away Kshama. You had your moment and you fucked it up. If I had known you were going to win, I never would have voted for you on the first place.

That’s if you call it Pike’s Place.

False imprisonment has a pretty low bar. You can absolutely get charged with it just for blocking someone’s path to the exit.

Cannot prevent a window from being locked? How does that work? Window units are bracketed into the frame, preventing the window from being fully closed. So it can’t lock.

Or are they saying you have to have a separate lock?

I’m just here to wish everyone a happy Constitutional Crisis Day.

He can’t. He’s full-blown idiotic libertarian. Wants all of the benefits of living in a rich state with good infrastructure. Can’t fathom paying for it, though.

Interesting stats. I’m sure racist shitheads will freak out about this. Anything that adds to their stress is a win in my book.

I’m just hoping this leads to more good Mexican food in North Seattle.

Every citizen of Washington state should know the name Brian Heywood. We should have the same visceral reaction to his bills that we had to Tim Eyman’s. He’s linked to a piece of legislation? Vote against it, campaign against it, tell your friends to do the same.

Sigh. Vancouver finally fixes their plumbing, and we do it to ourselves.