08.25.07

The redemption of Jeff Weaver and the Mariners

Posted in sports at 10:21 am by Administrator

Jeff Weaver, whose Yahoo player ranking was 1,157 (a ranking of one being the best) has a home on my fantasy team. And he’s doing just fine, helping me out as I’m one of the four teams contending for the title. (I’ve also had the surprising Gil Meche on my roster, who despite some recent struggles has had a decent season). After a horrible start to the season which included an ERA of more than 18 for a time, Weaver has settled into a groove. I admit I was among those calling for Bavasi’s head, for what seemed at the time to be one of the worst free agency signings in Mariners history, but then again Weaver is prone to slow starts. I’m still uncertain about his $S8.3 million salary, but Weaver has been more than serviceable the last couple months. The P-I’s Jim Moore gave Weaver his props  last week . Moore wrote a  column during Weaver’s struggles when he couldn’t have gotten Mario Mendoza out, imploring M’s fans to give him another chance, saying he was a good guy and would get things figured out. He has three complete games and a couple shutouts and is 4-0 in his last four starts. He is 6-10 with a 5.51 ERA, still below average, but also remarkable considering his disatrous April. Since he started out 0-6 with a 14.32 ERA, he’s gone 6-4 with a 3.37 ERA since. I added him to my team before this latest hot streak and it’s paid off. Even after a couple good starts after he came back from what the team called a shoulder injury, a lot of us still probably thought he would eventually implode again. To his credit, it hasn’t happened and he’s a one of the reasons the M’s have the third-best record in baseball. Granted, most of his wins are against lesser opponents (the Angels and Tigers knocked him around pretty good even during the good stretch), but he’s solid as a No. 5 starter right now. He was huge down the stretch for St. Louis last year and won the World Series clincher. Could he be on another Series winner in Seattle? A championship in the the most unexpected of years? The Mariners have proven they can beat Boston, the best team in the American League and all of baseball, and they’ve almost caught the Angels. They’ve got a better record than anyone in the National League. As M’s fans learned in the 116-win season of 2001, there are no guarantees. But you have to like an underdog that’s one of the most surprising teams in baseball this season.

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The construction industry’s underground

Posted in Politics at 9:06 am by Administrator

Back in May, the Washington state House and Senate unanimously voted to approve Senate Bill 5926 which created the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Underground Economy in the Construction Industry. It’s estimated, according to the bill, that between 20 and 50 percent of the employment in the construction industry is unreported to the state. That’s only a guess.  

 Although immigration is not mentioned in the bill, one would assume that among these workers are illegal immigrants mostly from south of the U.S. border. The government’s main concern in this matter, as stated in the bill, is that unreported workers mean no payroll taxes are being paid to federal and state agencies, including workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation taxes. For the workers, who are open to discrimination and exploitation, they cannot collect workers’ compensation if they are injured or unemployment if they are laid off. The purpose of the task force, according to the bill, “is to formulate a state policy to establish cohesion and transparency betweeen state agencies so as to increase the oversight and regulation of the underground economy practices in the construction industry in this state.” Part of this includes the pervasiveness of the unreported employment and projected costs to the state, as well as to the workers who operate underground.

The task force includes Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) the chairwoman of the Senate Labor, Commerce, Research and Development Committee and Sen. Jim Clements (R-Selah) the ranking minority member of the committee. Also represented are Rep. Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) the chairman of the of the House Commerce and Labor Committee and Rep. Cary Condotta (R-Wenatchee) the ranking minority member of that committee. Four labor representatives nominated by statewide labor organizations are on the task force along with four business representatives Among the business representatives is Hilary Stern, executive director of CASA Latina, a day labor organization that serves Latino immigrants. Four non-voting members representing the Department of Labor and Industries, Employment Security Department and Department of Revenue serve as liasions to the task force.

The Institute for Public Policy or another entity with expertise will be charged with coming up with the numbers. Draft recommendations are due Nov. 30, with a draft report due Dec. 15, and a final report to the Legislature due Jan. 1, 2008. Locally, Latino workers can be found congregating in Shoreline looking to be picked up for work. While this is typical in eastern Washington, in more rural western Washington cities like Mount Vernon and in Oregon, it appears to be newer in the north Seattle suburbs. The Enterprise plans to examine how this has emerged locally in an upcoming issue.

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