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WA vets defy Musk | Amazon’s AI | Cannabis ag worker union

Friday, March 14, 2025

 

LOCAL

► From the Spokesman Review — Washington federal workers defy Musk-directed ‘What did you do last week’ probe in their own mass emails — One sent a reply en masse to the human resources department that sent the original email and cc’d their entire forestry region. The other employee sent it to their leadership team and also cc’d their entire region, asserting they would not be replying to OPM’s email at all. One of the two employees, a Washington archaeologist, wrote, “As a United States Marine Corps combat veteran stationed overseas their entire enlistment, this is the exact situation we are trained to look for and not participate in” and added the OPM instruction was “unlawful.”

► From KUOW — One year later, a union contract for Starbucks baristas is still brewing — Newbill has been a barista with Starbucks for six months, and while many of their colleagues are struggling with burnout, they’re still determined to get a fair contract. “I think our movement is inevitable for the company,” Newbill said. “Our movement isn’t anything that the company doesn’t say they represent in their messaging and their culture; the union is just trying to hold them accountable to that.” During the annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, CEO Brian Niccol mostly avoided addressing the union, and instead talked to investors about the company’s push to turn a corner, in a branding move described as “Back to Starbucks.”

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — ‘Vitriol and blame.’ Laid-off federal workers face polarized landscape and uncertainty — “In this situation, they aren’t layoffs in the sense of the way we’ve always thought of them. Now all these things have been conflated with particular ideologies, particular values, particular statements of what and how the world should be.” On Tuesday, a disabled veteran responded to a question during another Murray-organized news conference. The question sought reaction to people who have contended disabled veterans can’t do the work or might not even show up to work. “To hear all these remarks about their service, not being of quality … is just disrespectful and really disheartening for us in the workforce looking at one another every day as we work hard, work extra long hours, work overtime on weekends, just to make sure that we are meeting our quotas,” said Future Zhou, Army veteran and former inventory-management specialist with VA Puget Sound.

 

ORGANIZING

► From the American Prospect — Amazon Uses Arsenal of AI Weapons Against Workers — Amazon weaponized workplace devices in use at warehouses that algorithmically direct and discipline workers. It exploited these machines to send anti-union messages, ask questions that workers say were designed to gauge union sympathies, and make “captive audience” meetings even more intimidating. During management-led meetings where workers were fed anti-union talking points, employees at the Bessemer plant would scan workers to monitor their efficiency and disciplinary record, reminding them about the digital eye surveilling them throughout the workday.

NATIONAL

► From People’s World — Mass march in nation’s capital to save Medicare and Medicaid — “Working people depend on Medicare and Medicaid,” the AFL-CIO tweeted. “Threatening to make cuts to these essential programs would jeopardize the ability of millions of people to get the health care they need. Today, we stood up and let Congress know we won’t let this attack go unanswered.”

► From the AP — Whipsawed by Trump’s tariffs, the US public is getting a lot more nervous about the economy — The University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment tumbled 10.5% on a monthly basis in March and plunged 27.1% over the past year. The preliminary report released Friday shows that consumers’ expectations of annual inflation climbed to 3.9% from 3.5%, the largest monthly jump since 1993.

► From the AFL-CIO:

► From the Columbia Spectator — Columbia expels Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers President, union says — The University expelled Grant Miner, president of the Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers, UAW announced in a Thursday news release. Miner is a Ph.D. student in the department of English and comparative literature. “Columbia fired our union president the day before we start bargaining—less than a week after allowing ICE to abduct our coworker,” SWC-UAW wrote in a Thursday post on X. “By firing SWC’s president, Columbia administration has violated labor law, giving the union grounds to file an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against the University,” the CUAD post reads. UAW called the expulsion an “assault on First Amendment rights” in its Thursday news release.

► From Wired — Covid Vaccines Have Paved the Way for Cancer Vaccines — We have a trial to stop skin cancer coming back after you cut it out. It’s now completed. What will happen now is that, over the next six to 12 months, we will monitor the people in the trial and work out if there’s a difference between the people who took the cancer vaccine and the ones who didn’t. We’re hoping to have results by the end of the year or beginning of 2026. If it’s successful, we will have invented the first approved personalized mRNA vaccine, within only five years of the first licensed mRNA vaccine for Covid.

 

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

► From Hoodline — Washington House Passes Bill Allowing Unionization for Agricultural Cannabis Workers — This bill addresses the exclusion of these workers from federal labor protections, according to the Washington State House Democrats. Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self (D-Mukilteo) has sponsored a bill focused on allowing agricultural cannabis workers in Washington to organize for fair wages and safe workplaces. Ortiz-Self emphasized, “This bill is about equity and justice, Agricultural cannabis workers, many from communities historically impacted by the War on Drugs, deserve the right to organize for fair wages and safe workplaces.

► From the Center Square — Lawmakers propose banning all federal labor unions — The Federal Workforce Freedom Act would prohibit federal employees from organizing or joining labor unions in order to collectively bargain, as well as forbid federal agencies from participating in collective bargaining negotiations with labor unions representing federal workers. The bill, introduced Thursday, would also terminate any and all collective bargaining agreements between labor unions and federal agencies “established before, on, or after the date of enactment of this bill.”

Editor’s note: one of the bills sponsors, Sen. Mike Lee, represents Utah where the state legislature recently passed a bill revoking public workers’ right to bargain. Advocates are gathering signatures for a ballot referendum to overturn it. 

► From the AP — Senate works to avert partial government shutdown ahead of midnight deadline — At least eight Democrats will need to join with Republicans to get the bill to a 60-vote threshold and advance it. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer gave members of his caucus days to vent their frustration about the options before them, but abruptly switched course and made clear on the eve of voting that he will not allow a government shutdown.

► From the New York Times — DOGE Makes Its Latest Errors Harder to Find — Mr. Musk’s group posted a new set of claims to its website on March 2, saying it had saved taxpayers $10 billion by terminating 3,489 federal grants. Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE, Mr. Musk’s government-restructuring effort, had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for…The New York Times, at first, found a way around the group’s obfuscation. That is because Mr. Musk’s group had briefly embedded the federal identification numbers of these grants in the publicly available source code. The Times used those numbers to match DOGE’s claims with reality, and to discover that they contained the same kind of errors that it had made in the past. Mr. Musk’s group later removed those identifiers from the code, and posted more batches of claims that could not be verified at all.

► From the New York Times — Postal Service Reaches Deal With Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — Mr. DeJoy, a Republican megadonor, wrote in the letter that Mr. Musk’s initiative was “an effort aligned” with his efforts. He said that the Postal Service’s work force had shrunk by 30,000 since the 2021 fiscal year, and that the agency planned to complete a “further reduction of another 10,000 people in the next 30 days” through a previously established voluntary-retirement program.

► From Politico — Voters frustrated with Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, new poll finds — Fifty-four percent of voters believe DOGE, which the Trump administration has charged with slashing government spending, is harming the country. In comparison, 40 percent say Musk’s office is helping, according to the Quinnipiac poll. And 60 percent of voters disapprove of how Musk and DOGE deal with the federal workforce, while 36 percent approve.

► From The New York Times — Trump Education Department Cuts Could Decimate School Success Metrics — Other basic information about schools, along with research about what works to improve them, seems most likely to be degraded or to disappear entirely. Many of those who were laid off worked on projects evaluating math and reading instruction, disability supports and other subjects critical to student learning. “This is bedrock, base-line information for how our society is functioning,” said Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

► From the Washington Post — Richest Americans, big businesses might welcome IRS cuts, officials say — Current and former employees don’t know who will take on pending audits amid these staff cuts. But some say one demographic stands to benefit. “The wealthy. One hundred percent,” said Anthony Kim, a longtime IRS attorney now in private practice.

 

JOLT OF JOY

Today’s chuckle features one of the best sounds in the world: a dude with a thick Boston accent yelling “drahmah.” Keep on keeping on comrades, see ya next week.

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