In this morning's Morning Fizz comments thread, reader "Fat-Tailed" wrote that he wanted more on the Nickels flap: Mayor Nickels crossed a picket line while attending the U.S. Conference of Mayor's annual meeting in Rhode Island. (Nickels was being appointed president of the national  Mayor's group.)

Fat Tailed wrote: 

10. Fat-tailed says: 
Re: Nickels’s bizarrely literal understanding of “crossing a picket line” — any response from any of the “6 major unions” who endorsed the mayor a couple weeks ago. Would love to know if this impacts their sense of him as a supporter.

Nickels, whose office actually defended his presence at the picketed convention center by saying he didn't literally cross the line because he walked over from an adjoining hotel—has been endorsed by  the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 751;  Laborers Local 440;  Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters; Seattle/King County Building and Construction Trades Union; UNITE HERE! Local 8;  and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21.

I have messages in with several of these unions to get their reaction to Nickels apparent slight, and I was able to talk with Lee Newgent, Executive Secretary of the Seattle Builidng Trades Union.

Newgent laughed and said he was wondering when the press was going to start calling. He told me he "was on the phone with Nickels' office first thing this morning."  Newgent says Team Nickels justified Nickels' presence inside the Convention Center because union workers were doing the set up for the event. Newgent didn't sound 100 percent satisfied, though, and said, "We were pretty concerned about this and it'll definitely come up at tomorrow's meeting." (His union has a regular Tuesday meeting.)

Asked if  Seattle/King County Building and Construction Trades Union might reconsider their Nickels endorsement, Newgent said skeptically, "That would take a pretty big movement.

I have a message in with Mayor Nickels' office. 

UPDATE: I just spoke with Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis about all this. Cies' voice skitters off the register in disbelief that Nickels is catching hell for being inside the Convention Center: "The laborers, the bar tenders, the stagehands working the event were all union," he says—"the police department and EMTs from the fire department were inside the event!" (I don't usually use exclamation marks, but you should have heard the deputy mayor on the other end of the line.) "The place was full of union members."  Ceis added that the mayor skipped other events, outside the Convention Center, that were not being staffed by union workers. "We did not go to those." 

Ceis also stuck to his other explanation: "We did not cross a picket line. We were inside the whole time." (Nickels' hotel was connected to the Convention Center.)

I told him his first explanation—that the event was worked by union staff including people from the Providence Fire Department— was a compelling-ish answer, but the "he didn't cross the picket line" line was ridiculous.

And one more thing! Ceis exclaimed: "Here in Seattle, we have a [firefighters] contract. They just ratified it."