OR nurses TA | the Black middle class | Starbucks layoffs

Monday, February 24, 2025

STRIKES

► From KATU 2 — Providence, Oregon Nurses Association reach another tentative agreement amid strike — Should the nurses vote to ratify the newly reached tentative agreement, nurses will get a raise of up to 22% immediately. Additionally, they say that Providence will now factor in their patient load when making staffing decisions. “We feel really good about this because there’s a lot of other agreements that we were able to come to, besides the wage piece,” said Virginia Smith, a nurse at Providence.

LOCAL

► From the Spokesman Review — ‘They thought they were living the American dream’: ICE arrest of Othello woman rattles community as teen son is left to run family’s food truck — Eighteen-year-old Raul Gomez-Eudave woke up on a Saturday morning earlier this month to a flood of missed calls and text messages. They were videos and photos of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents searching through his mother’s belongings. And then another video of his mother, Micaela Eudave, handcuffed and being led away on Feb. 8. “I thought they were going to pick up people with criminal backgrounds, who would just not be good for society,” Gomez-Eudave said. “My mom’s never done anything wrong.” After looking at the background from where the videos were taken, he recognized the spot where she was detained. He quickly drove there and discovered the only thing left was her car.

► From the Washington State Standard — Lawsuit against Amazon provides first test of WA’s health data privacy law — The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges Amazon’s advertising network, embedded in various phone applications, harvested consumer data without consent. This data, including location information, is then used for targeted advertising, according to the lawsuit. The impetus for the law came from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. The idea was to protect people coming to Washington from states where they could be prosecuted for seeking reproductive health care. Experts also warned the data collected from period-tracking apps could be used to penalize those seeking an abortion.

► From MyNorthwest.com — Federal layoffs drive 35% jump in unemployment claims among Washington employees — Officials noted that, since January 20, 362 federal employees have submitted claims, with a concentrated surge of 156 claims occurring during the five-day period from February 13 to February 18. On Tuesday, February 18 alone, 63 new claims were filed, contributing to an average of 14 new unemployment claims per day this year.

► From Yakima Herald-Republic — Frustration and shock accompany firings of Yakima Valley’s federal workers  — On the ground in the Yakima Valley, federal employees who have recently been fired are frustrated by what they call wrongful terminations. They have committed their lives and careers to helping their communities, they said, and they are now abruptly being told to leave. Their work, including critical research for Yakima’s important agricultural industry and management of local forests, is being left to languish, they said.

► From the union-busting Columbian — Southwest Washington officials say data centers use too much power, employ too few people to make economic sense — The number of data centers around the Pacific Northwest has exploded in recent decades, growing from less than two dozen in 2008 to more than 200 across Oregon and Washington today. Longview Community Development Director Nick Little said cryptocurrency mining facilities do not benefit the city by paying business & occupation taxes or permits, raising land value, or employing many people.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the OPB — Portland State faculty union steps closer to potential strike, declaring impasse in contract negotiations — This week, PSU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors filed a declaration of impasse with the Oregon Employment Relations Board. The union represents close to 1,200 faculty and academic professionals at Portland State. This declaration comes after the two parties entered mediation sessions last month. Since then, the union and the university met for over 70 hours in seven mediation sessions, according to PSU-AAUP.

NATIONAL

► From the Seattle Times — Starbucks to lay off 1,100 corporate workers amid turnaround attempt — Starbucks will lay off 1,100 corporate employees by Tuesday morning and eliminate hundreds of open roles, the company announced Monday. The layoffs will not affect store or warehouse employees. Starbucks did not say how many Seattle-area workers would be laid off. [CEO] Niccol is based at his home in Newport Beach, Calif., and travels to the Sodo headquarters when needed, a stipulation carved out for him in his offer letter in August. Any employees at the director level and below who have remote status currently will keep it, but those in future roles will be required to be based in Seattle or Toronto.

Editor’s note: Along with the private jet, Niccol got $96 million in compensation for four months of work in 2024. 

► From the AP — Dow falls nearly 750 points and US stocks tumble as businesses and consumers worry about tariffs — The losses accelerated through the day following several weaker-than-expected reports on the economy. One suggested U.S. business activity is close to stalling, with growth slowing to a 17-month low. The preliminary report from S&P Global said activity unexpectedly shrank for U.S. services businesses, and many in the survey reported slumping optimism because of worries about Washington. “Companies report widespread concerns about the impact of federal government policies, ranging from spending cuts to tariffs and geopolitical developments,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

► From the AP — Pennsylvania hostage-taking and shootout highlight rising violence against US hospital workers — Archangel-Ortiz’s motives remained unclear but nurses report increasing harassment from the public, especially following the coronavirus pandemic, said Sem, former director of security and crisis management for Waste Management and vice president at Pinkerton/Securitas. Besides the fear of being hurt themselves, nurses fear leaving their patients unguarded. “If you step away from a bedside to run, to hide, to keep safe, you’re leaving your patient vulnerable,” she said.

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• Judge upholds ban on DOGE accessing sensitive Treasury information, for now (AP)
• Judge largely blocks Trump’s executive orders ending federal support for DEI programs (AP)
• Supreme Court Rejects, for Now, Trump’s Bid to Fire Government Watchdog (New York Times)
• Judge clears Trump administration to pull USAID employees from roles (Axios)

► From NBC News — Much of the Black middle class was built by federal jobs. That may change. — “The federal workforce was a means to help build Black middle class. It hired Black Americans at a higher rate than private employers,” said Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents the Education Department employees. As a part of his efforts, President Trump is angling to shut down the Department of Education, a move that will have dramatic repercussions around the country. Nearly 30% of Education employees are Black according to a 2024 report by the department. Smith said 74 workers at the department had been let go so far, 60 of whom are Black.

► From CNBC — How the Trump and DOGE terminations — perhaps the biggest job cuts in history — may affect the economy — The total of these two groups — nearly 300,000 workers — would make these actions amount to the “largest job cut in American history (by a mile),” Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, wrote Tuesday. “We may soon find out the hard way that people drive the U.S. economy,” Cox wrote.

► From Axios — Agencies, unions tell fed workers: Don’t answer Musk’s threat email — Multiple agencies and unions have told federal workers not to respond to a new email demanding that they account for their work over the last week — despite Elon Musk’s threat they’ll lose their jobs if they don’t. “AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country,” union president Everett Kelley said in a statement Saturday night. The Department of Defense told its employees that only the department is responsible for “reviewing the performance of its personnel” and it will undertake employee reviews “in accordance with its own procedures.” Employees were told to disregard the OPM email. NBC reported that new FBI director Kash Patel told employees not to answer the email. Government Executive reported that NOAA and NSA employees were told the same. The New York Times reported that State Department employees were also told not to respond.

► From the New York Times — DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes — Some contracts the group claims credit for were double- or triple-counted. Another initially contained an error that inflated the totals by billions of dollars. In at least one instance, the group claimed an entire contract had been canceled when only part of the work had been halted. In others, contracts the group said it had closed were actually ended under the Biden administration.

► From CNN — Trump’s team is using Project 2025 as a blueprint to make changes to federal health programs — Few voters likely expected President Donald Trump in the first weeks of his administration to slash billions of dollars from the nation’s premier federal cancer research agency. The rapid-fire adoption of many of Project 2025’s objectives indicates that Trump acolytes — many of its contributors were veterans of his first term, and some have joined his second administration — have for years quietly laid the groundwork to disrupt the national health system.

► From the New York Times — Senate G.O.P. Passes Budget Resolution, and Punts on Tough Questions — On a largely party-line vote, 52-48, Senate Republicans won adoption of a blueprint that calls for a $150 billion increase in military spending and $175 billion more for border security over the next decade. How will they pay for it? That’s a question for another day. What about the huge tax cuts they and Mr. Trump have promised? We’ll figure that out later, senators say.

► From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A group of frustrated Yosemite National Park staffers hoping to draw attention to the federal government’s sweeping workforce cuts hung an upside-down American flag thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan on Saturday.

📸: Tracy Barbutes pic.twitter.com/yGqSIp05Mp

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) February 23, 2025

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