The Tacoma area's unemployment rate stabilized at 10.1 percent in May, the same rate as the revised figures for April for the Tacoma area.

But the Tacoma figure, released today by the Washington State Employment Security Department along with other rates statewide, remains greater than the state average.

The state's ueemployment percentage, 9.4 percent, inched upward from the 9 percent recorded in April on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Neighboring Thurston and King counties were more fortunate with identical 8 percent unemployment rates.

Snohomish County recorded a 9.5 percent rate.

The labor force lost 6,700 non-farm jobs in May statewide, the department said.

Expect dips and peaks in the rate for the next several months, said Greg Weeks, chief of the state's labor market information office.

"The economic numbers are volatile right now," he said, "and at times contradictory."

"The recession has been deep and wide, and we're likely to see ups and downs for awhile," he said.

About 327,430 people are unemployed in the state. Of those, 215,218 are receiving unemployment compensation checks.

Washington Sen. Patty Murray today voiced her concern over European governments' plans to offer Boeing rival Airbus low-cost loans to develop a new jetliner.

The European planemaker is seeking up to $5 billion in loans to help pay the estimated $11 billion cost of developing the Airbus A350XWB.

The A350XWB is designed to compete with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and its 777.

"I am deeply troubled that Airbus is considering pursuing additional illegal, trade-distorting subsidies that have caused adverse effect on the United States aerospace industry," said wrote in a letter to John Bruxton, head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States.

"Launch aid for the A350, or any other preferential financing for Airbus is completely unacceptable," she wrote. "We will not tolerate another round of subsidies that kill American jobs."

Airbus claims Boeing likewise receives governmental subsidies in the form of aeronautical research contracts from the federal government and from foreign governments who subsidize Boeing's industrial partners in their countries.

Airbus says it has repayed prior governmental loans with interest from the sale of aircraft.

But some analysts recently have raised the possibility that that streak of repayments could end with the superjumbo A380.

Sales of the huge aircraft have halted with the recession at fewer than 200, and some airlines are having second thoughts about deploying a plane with so much capacity on now-weak routes.

Airbus has said it will have to sell about 400 of the 550-passenger planes to recoup its investment.

Coast Engine and Equipment Co., the Tacoma Tideflats railroad equipment repair company, has postponed its closure a month until July 31.

Dave Swanson, CEECO president, said finishing up commitments to several customers will take that long to complete.

That means extended employment for the six dozen workers CEECO has on its payroll.

CEECO had originally scheduled its final day for July 3.

The drop in demand in the railroad industry has had a major effect on locomotive repair and overhaul companies such as CEECO. Railroads that formerly were repairing their motive power now just draw from the pool of mothballed locomotives.

Railroads have sidelined hundreds of locomotives as demand has slackened with the recession.

The sign on the door said it all. Tacoma’s Black Water Cafe closed on Monday.

No reasons given, no long sentimental goodbyes offered. Just that: Closed.

The popular downtown coffee purveyor, located at 743 St. Helens Ave., now leaves a void. Where will people go to satisfy their needs - assuming those needs include a good cup of coffee from an independent store and a good place to sit and listen to the music of the spheres.

What’s left? Satellite Coffee on Division, Valhalla Coffee on Sixth Avenue, Mandolin Cafe also on South 12th, and Commencement Bay Coffee on Jefferson all come to mind.

So what’s your favorite? Do you have a personal caffeine nest somewhere in Tacoma? Maybe it’s Tully’s or Starbucks. Maybe it’s an actual cafe, somewhere that’s been serving joe since before a cup of same cost more than a turkey dinner at Woolworth’s.

Let the discussion begin. Who takes the place of Black Water?

One of Tacoma's largest developers has signed an extended labor harmony agreement with 16 unions and the Pierce County Building and Construction Trades Council.

The agreement with Point Ruston LLC, which is building billion dollar mixed-use office, retail and residential development at the site of the old Asarco smelter near Point Defiance Park, ensures that at least half the labor used in the project will be union, said Loren Cohen, a spokesman for the development company.

The news release announcing the expansion of a similar agreement signed last December, is the latest salvo in a fight between Point Ruston developer Mike Cohen and the activist group Jobs with Justice.

Jobs with Justice has accused Cohen's construction activity of stirring up arsenic-polluted dust from the smelter site through careless construction practices by some of his contractors.

Indeed, Cohen dismissed one non-union contractor from the job after the state discovered its workers lacked training about working on the site.

The former Asarco smelter used high-arsenic ore as the raw material from which it extracted copper and other metals and from which it captured arsenic for use in industrial chemicals and poisons.

The smelter site has been the subject of intensive federal scrutiny in an effort to cleanup the brownfield location and make it suitable again for habitation.

Cohen contends he is following all Environmental Protection Agency guidelines. The EPA and Asarco have spent more than $100 million cleaning up and trapping polutants from the old smelter.

Point Ruston earlier this year sued Jobs with Justice and the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters alleged they had harassed the company and interfered with its development activities.

Jobs with Justice named Cohen its 2008 "Grinch of the Year."

The labor harmony agreement, however, elicited a mostly laudatory comment from Jobs with Justice.

"Jobs with Justice celebrates this tremendous progress for construction workers and the right to organize unions at Point Ruston. We hope this progress will continue on the principle that workers can afford some of the homes they build as well as justice for future and past Point Ruston workers," said Mo Hoyt, Jobs with Justice Pierce County Organizing Committee chair.

Jobs with Justice has called on Cohen to include affordable housing in the waterfront view development.