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Psych unit closure | ICE raid response | PFAS standards

Thursday, January 23, 2025

 

STRIKES

â–ș From the Las Vegas Sun — Striking workers at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas ratify contract — A vote today among workers to ratify a five-year contract with Virgin Hotels Las Vegas was unanimous, according to a social media post from the Culinary Union. “Virgin Hotels Las Vegas and the Culinary and Bartenders Unions are pleased to be moving past their contract negotiations as each looks forward to fostering a positive and collaborative working relationship for the benefit of all team members at the property,” the union and off-Strip hotel-casino said in a joint statement.

â–ș From the Oregon AFL-CIO:

 

LOCAL

â–ș From Investigate West — Former staff at Spokane youth psychiatric unit blame Providence for closure — In the last decade, Sacred Heart repeatedly reduced services and long-term resources in the unit, according to internal emails, public records and interviews. Yet as Sacred Heart cuts youth services in Spokane, the Providence system is pouring more than $1 billion into a hospital expansion in Seattle that sees fewer Medicaid patients. And its executives are making millions. All four staff members who spoke with InvestigateWest said Sacred Heart’s own decisions had contributed to its inability to keep the psychiatric unit staffed.

â–ș From the Spokesman Review — ‘Daunting’: Uncertainty in Spokane as Trump threatens local officials who don’t aid deportations, but state law is clear for schools, hospitals and police — “For example, a church is still private, not public property. If they’re going to want to go into the churches, they’re going to need a warrant, and a warrant issued by a judge, not a warrant issued by another administrative official,” Cortes said. “This goes for businesses, hospitals and schools as well. If they’re going to want to go into a school, they’re going to need a warrant to enter these areas that are not public areas, and so in a place like Washington that still has the sanctuary protections, then they still need to comply with these legal mechanisms in order for them to enter nonpublic areas.”

â–ș From the Tri-City Herald — Nearly 90% Hispanic Eastern WA city assures residents ‘no immigration raids’ occurring — City leaders in Sunnyside dispelled rumors this week that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were teeing up raids in the city as President Donald Trump came into power. Similarly in the Tri-Cities, Kennewick, Pasco and Richland city leaders said this week they were unaware of any planned immigration enforcement actions in their areas. Gonzalez says it’s not just undocumented residents who are concerned about immigration enforcement — legal residents and workers here on visas also fear they may be arrested indiscriminately by ICE.

â–ș From the Tacoma News Tribune — REI sells itself as a co-op. But it mistreats workers like a corporation. You can act — At the Bellingham store, workers voted to unionize more than a year ago, but they have been blocked from achieving workplace improvements by an expensive union-busting firm, Morgan Lewis, which has represented Donald Trump and Amazon. Currently, Morgan Lewis is representing SpaceX in a case that would declare the National Labor Relations Act unconstitutional, taking away workers’ legal rights to organize unions.

 

AEROSPACE

â–ș From Reuters — Union investigates claims that Boeing is sending work to non-union locations — The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) formally began investigating the allegations in December, when it requested relevant information from Boeing, the union’s Director of Strategic Development Rich Plunkett said Wednesday. In November and December, Boeing issued layoff notices to more than 4,000 U.S. workers, including 660 to SPEEA members, according to publicly-available state employment records and the union. Soon after the first round of notices went out, SPEEA officials started hearing from members that “at least some of the work that was being performed by those subject to layoffs is now being sent to other Boeing locations,” Plunkett said.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

â–ș From PYOK — Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants Set To Be Presented With New Tentative Contract After Union Had To Go Back To The Bargaining Table — Crew members at Alaska Airlines are one of the final flight attendant workgroups to hammer out an updated contract, following successful but strung-out negotiations at Southwest and American Airlines. Flight attendants at United Airlines are, however, still very much engaged in active negotiations, although both sides remain deeply at odds on several important aspects of the contract, including, of course, pay.

Editor’s note: in related news… Alaska Air 2024 profits rise despite rough start, costly acquisition

â–ș From OPB — Two Portland public labor unions inch closer to a strike — Starting this Friday, AFSCME members will vote on whether or not to authorize a strike. Voting will last five days. If the union votes in favor, and AFSCME’s Jan. 29 meeting with the city doesn’t resolve their contract problems, union leaders are expected to give the city a mandatory 10-day strike notice. That means workers could walk off the job in early February. But DCTU could beat them to it. DCTU members voted earlier this month to authorize a strike. Union negotiators are scheduled to meet with city counterparts on Thursday.

 

NATIONAL

â–ș From People’s World — UAW forces Stellantis to keep promises, wins back thousands of jobs –fter months of campaigns, rallies, grievances filed, and strike votes taken, the United Auto Workers have just won back thousands of jobs in a new agreement with Stellantis. This victory is a testament to the power of workers standing together and holding a billion-dollar corporation accountable,” Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, and Kevin Gotkinsky, UAW Stellantis Department Director, said in a statement released Wednesday morning.

â–ș From the National Desk — New standards address PFAS toxins in firefighting turnout gear for the first time — Some blame a years-old book of gear standards from the National Fire Protection Association, or NFPA, which has been accused of “effectively requiring” the use of PFAS in gear for nearly two decades. Ed Kelly, General President of the International Association of Firefighters, a union representing more than 300,000 firefighters, is suing the NFPA. “We’ve buried thousands and thousands of our brothers and sisters from job related cancer and to the extent that this standard influenced that, our family members deserve answers,” said Ed Kelly.

â–ș From the AP — More Americans file for unemployment benefits last week, continuing claims highest in 3 years — The rising level of continuing claims, the total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits, suggests that some who are receiving benefits are finding it harder to land new jobs. That could mean that demand for workers is waning, even as the economy remains strong.

 

POLITICS & POLICY

â–ș From the union-busting Columbian — A bid to block Trump’s cancellation of birthright citizenship is in federal court in Seattle — A federal judge in Seattle is set to hear the first arguments Thursday in a multi-state lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship regardless of the parents’ immigration status. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, scheduled the session to consider the request from Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington.

Editor’s note: update from the AP — A federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship

â–ș From the Washington Post — House passes Laken Riley Act as Trump begins immigration crackdown — “Donald Trump has been able to twist the Democratic Party’s position on immigration into a caricature of itself,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), who voted against the final Laken Riley bill after he attempted to amend it. “But it has not helped that the Democratic Party is not as clear as we should be about the principles that we support for a more comprehensive immigration bill.” While polls show widespread support for deporting undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes, most Americans oppose deporting individuals who have lived in the United States for a long time and have no criminal record.

â–ș From KREM — Proposed bill would give unemployment benefits to workers who go on strike — April Sims with the Washington Labor Council said the legislation is about leveling the playing field between striking workers and employers, who ultimately use loss of pay as a means to get unions to settle before they’ve reached an ideal contract. “Workers don’t make the decision to go on strike lightly,” Sims said. “They never have and they never will. Workers just want the dignity that comes from working hard and making enough money to take care of their families.”

â–ș From WUSA — Executive Order: Union tells federal workers to comply with orders but file grievances — One of the country’s largest federal employee unions is urging remote workers ordered back to the office by President Trump’s executive order eliminating remote work and reclassifying many civil servants to comply with the directive but to immediately file a grievance if the mandate violates their collective bargaining agreements. At least two unions representing federal workers have filed lawsuits to block the directive, which requires tens of thousands of government employees to return to their offices immediately.

â–ș From WUSA — Trump administration under fire for executive orders on federal workforce — American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) President Everett Kelley says these rollbacks will impact veteran federal workers who’ve already given so much to our country. “Of the federal workforce, which is about 2.2 million [people], 642,00 of them are veterans,” Kelley said. “When you start thinking of taking away the ability for them to be accommodated in the work force, that’s what DEI does.”

 

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