State awards $850K in grants to area projects

The Washington state Department of Commerce has awarded more than $850,000 to the city of Spokane and Airway Heights for affordable housing development.

The city of Spokane received $680,460 for the second phase of the Liberty Park Terrace Apartments. The project’s second phase adds 54 affordable housing units and creates an integrated campus building that will include an early learning center.

Airway Heights was awarded $178,003 for phase two of the Highland Village housing development that will create 50 affordable housing units. The project also includes a community building and park.

The projects are among 16 selected by the Department of Commerce to develop more than 1,500 affordable housing units in the state. The 16 projects were awarded a total of $18.6 million, according to the department.

Boeing orders increase despite problems

CHICAGO – Boeing said Tuesday that it delivered 32 commercial jetliners in January, a slight improvement over a year earlier despite the ongoing halt in shipments of is 787 Dreamliner jet because of manufacturing problems.

Most of the deliveries were 737 Max jets including seven sent to Ryanair. A year earlier it shipped 26 planes.

Deliveries are an important source of cash for aircraft manufacturers, and Boeing has been unable to ship any 787s since last May because of flaws including gaps between fuselage panels.

Boeing also said that it took 75 net new orders last month, its 12th straight month in which orders outnumbered cancellations.

Orders have perked up as airlines gain confidence in recovering from the pandemic.

The company said 55 of the orders were for Max jets, including 23 by American and 12 by Southwest – both previously announced by the carriers.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. is coming off a $4.3 billion loss in 2021, most of it in the fourth quarter, when it took a $3.5 billion charge related to the 787.

Starbucks fires seven during union push

Starbucks has fired seven employees who were leading an effort to unionize a Memphis, Tennessee, store.

The Seattle coffee giant said Tuesday that the employees violated company policy by reopening a store after closing time and inviting nonemployees to come inside and move throughout the store, including behind the counter and in back rooms.

The employees used the store to do an interview with a local television station about their unionizing effort.

But the employees who were fired say Starbucks was retaliating against them for their unionization efforts.

They say they plan to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

“Most of these partners had never had a write-up or anything,” said Beto Sanchez, 25, one of the workers who was fired.

The dispute comes as a growing number of Starbucks stores across the country seek to unionize.

Since December, when a store in Buffalo, New York, became the first Starbucks location to form a union in decades, 66 stores in 20 states have filed petitions with the labor board to hold union elections, according to Workers United, which is organizing Starbucks workers.

Starbucks opposes unionization, saying the company functions best when it can work directly with its employees.

But the company said Tuesday’s firings were not related to the unionization effort, but to store safety and security.

From staff and wire reports