According to The New York Times, an executive for the largest nail producer in the U.S. who voted for Donald Trump said he is so upset by Trump’s trade policies that he is lobbying a Democratic senator for help.

George Skarich, vice president of sales for Missouri-based Mid Continent Nail Corporation, said that his nail company could soon go out of business.

“He ran on ‘Make America Great Again,’ and the point was to defend and protect jobs in the United States,” Skarich said.

“Now here is an action he decides to take that has the potential to cost 500 U.S. citizens their jobs,” he added, referring to the 25 percent tariffs on steel imports that Trump announced in March.

https://www.truthexam.com/2018/06/nail-manufacturing-exec-voted-for-trump-and-now-has-to-lay-off-his-employees-wants-democrats-help/

The National Labor Relations Board in a split decision has ordered a tribal casino in California to pay $500 each to about 500 unionized employees after they received a smaller bonus than their nonunion coworkers.

The board in a 2-1 decision on Thursday rejected claims by the Viejas Casino & Resort near San Diego that it was proper to give members of a United Food and Commercial Workers local $500 bonuses in 2015, instead of the $1,000 granted to other workers, because they had received a raise in a bargaining agreement adopted earlier that year.

https://www.reuters.com/article/labor-casino/divided-nlrb-says-california-casino-owes-union-workers-bonuses-idUSL1N1TO1VW

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Registered nurses from Research Medical Center protested Friday night in front of their hospital in hopes the administration will add and retain more nurses.

Research Medical Center administrators issued a statement that patient care is the top priority, and additional nurses are being hired to replace nurses who are leaving to work at other hospitals, retiring, or going to work for corporations.

The protesting nurses said increasing wages and giving nurses a portion of the tax break the hospital received from President Trump would help retain nurses

Nurses from Menorah Medical Center are attending the rally to support the nurses at Research Medical Center. Representatives from the Kansas City Firefighters Union also came to show their support

https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/kansas-city-area-nurses-picket-over-nurse-patient-ratio-want-change

by contractor

Joey Hale and Ben Ricks had only been at work for three hours when they fell to their deaths June 4 in an elevator shaft at the former International Shoe Co. building at 1501 Washington Ave. near the City Museum.

Hale, 44, and Ricks, 58, both of St. Louis, were working in a “spider basket” suspended by a cable operated by a hoist six stories up inside the elevator shaft when it fell. Authorities said a safety cable snapped, but that only tells part of the story.

If the job was being performed properly, both men should also have been harnessed to secondary safety lines, secured outside of the basket, to prevent them from falling if the equipment failed.

Exactly what happened isn’t clear. The City of St. Louis and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are investigating.

https://labortribune.com/workers-deaths-expose-numerous-unsafe-work-conditions-false-statements-distortion-misdirection-by-contractor/

ST. LOUIS - Workers are planning to rally in St. Louis Saturday morning to defeat Proposition A. Voters will decide the future of 'The Right to Work' law in the August primary.

The rally will take place at the Laborers’ Local 42 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, with AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka.

Union members and politicians rallied earlier this year, in March, at the state capitol in Jefferson City.

Republicans voted to put the issue on the August ballot, moving it from the November election. The move will likely mean fewer voters decide the issue.

https://kplr11.com/2018/06/23/union-members-rally-against-proposition-a-in-midtown-saturday-morning/

JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri’s new lieutenant governor said he’s moving forward with his duties despite a pending lawsuit seeking to rescind his appointment.

Former Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kehoe, who was sworn into office Monday, said Wednesday it was not surprising that Democrats filed a lawsuit seeking to nullify the action taken by Gov. Mike Parson.

“I think most people thought something would come forward,” said Kehoe, a 56-year-old Jefferson City Republican.

Hours after Parson named Kehoe to the post Parson had held since January 2017, the Missouri Democratic Party filed a lawsuit targeting the legal and constitutional questions that surround the ability of a chief executive to fill a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/missouri-s-new-lieutenant-governor-says-he-s-moving-forward/article_c3d7d675-503f-5819-8f68-7934d65e1a04.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest

CAPITOL HILL – Two attack submarines sent to private shipyards for routine maintenance availabilities are running a few months behind schedule. But the Navy hopes that using these new-construction yards for sub-maintenance on a regular basis will help them become reliable providers of on-time maintenance.

Attack submarines faced massive backlogs at the Navy’s four public shipyards, which prioritize ballistic-missile submarines and aircraft carriers above the SSNs. After several high-profile examples of SSNs sitting pierside for months and years while awaiting space at the yards to open up, the Navy opted to send USS Montpelier (SSN-765) to General Dynamics Electric Boat and USS Helena (SSN-725), USS Columbus (SSN-762) and USS Boise (SSN-764) to Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding.

“The skill set required to do maintenance is different than it is for new construction, so when you give them repair work after they haven’t had repair work in a while, and you expect them to immediate perform like a Swiss watch, you find they’re challenged to do that. EB’s been challenged with Montpelier, we’re going to be late there, and Newport News is being challenged on Helena, we’re going to be a little late there,” Naval Sea Systems Command Commander Vice Adm. Tom Moore said today at a House Armed Services readiness subcommittee hearing.

“Some of that’s because we haven’t built that proficiency up, and so the Navy’s having discussions that maybe it would be in our best interest to, on a regular basis, keep some submarine repair work in the private sector not only as a relief valve for the public yards as we level-load them, but also to establish that proficiency level so that when we do get ourselves into a crisis we’ve got a partner over there that’s performed that work on a regular basis that can do that going forward.”

https://news.usni.org/2018/06/14/ssn-maintenance-at-private-yards-running-behind-navsea-hopes-to-see-timely-delivery-if-more-work-given-to-them

After years of stops and starts, the Marine Corps has selected BAE Systems to build the service’s next generation of armored amphibious vehicles designed to protect Marines in transit from sea to shore, the service announced late Tuesday afternoon.

BAE will now produce 30 low-rate initial production units of its eight-wheeled Amphibious Combat Vehicle. The company beat out SAIC to win a $198-million contract for the ACV 1.1 program, with the first vehicles delivering in the fall of next year, John Garner, the Program Executive Officer for Land Systems in the Marine Corps, told reporters during a late Tuesday conference call.

“The path has been navigated to date with one primary goal in mind: ensuring that we field the best capability to our Marines as quickly as possible at an affordable price,” Garner said.

The total value of the contract, if all options are executed, could be as high as $1.2 billion for up to 204 ACVs, BAE said in a late Tuesday statement.

https://news.usni.org/2018/06/19/marines-pick-bae-to-build-amphibious-combat-vehicle-total-contract-worth-up-to-1-2b

A federal government agency has concluded radioactive contamination in a north St. Louis County creek could cause increased risk of certain types of cancer in residents who live near the north St. Louis County waterway.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s public health assessment, released Monday, states that residents who were exposed to the area around Coldwater Creek had a higher risk of exposure to radioactive contaminants, and thus a higher risk of bone cancer, lung cancer or leukemia. The federal organization is also calling for the public to comment and add to the report through Aug. 31.

Advocates for residents near Coldwater Creek were pleased to hear representatives of a federal agency acknowledge what they have long suspected.

“What they’re saying they confirm our exposure could be linked to our cancer and our illnesses,” community activist Kim Visintine said.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/federal-report-radioactive-waste-coldwater-creek-increases-cancer-risk#stream/0

Hawaii has record visitor spending but many hotel employees still can’t afford to buy homes.
By Anita Hofschneider / June 18, 2018
Jowenna Ellazar spends eight hours a day changing sheets, scrubbing toilets and wiping down surfaces in hotel rooms at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel in Waikiki.

Then she drives an hour and a half back to Mililani in Central Oahu, where the 27-year-old lives in a four-bedroom house with her boyfriend, two children, two brothers, sister-in-law and parents.

Ellazar is one of thousands of workers who are the backbone of Hawaii’s thriving visitor industry. But she can’t afford to buy a home in the state where she was born and raised.

Unite Here Local 5, a union representing 11,000 service workers, is gearing up for contract negotiations to start next month. Apart from wages and benefits, the union is asking for something new: Money from the hotels to help workers become homeowners.

http://www.civilbeat.org/2018/06/should-hawaii-hotels-help-their-workers-buy-homes/