Strike authorized at PeaceHealth | WSU rallies | Kilmar Abrego-Garcia

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

LOCAL

► From KREM — WSU students, faculty hold ‘Kill the Cuts Rally’ pushing back against potential federal funding cuts — A local union advocating for academic student workers organized dozens of people for a demonstration on the steps of Todd Hall at WSU’s Pullman campus to voice their concerns over potential state and federal funding loss. “We will fight back,” said Bronwyn Valentine, a WSU grad student. “That is affecting our ability to do our research – our ability to decent quality of lives – and do what we are really here to do which is help people and create meaningful research.”

► From the Tri-City Herald — WA wants to close some inmate reentry centers. Tri-Cities supporters push back — Paul Anderson struggled to stay out of trouble with the law for years after getting out of prison. It wasn’t until he spent six months at the Washington State Department of Corrections reentry program in Kennewick that he learned how to deal with the stress that came with living outside an institution. The Tri-Cities Reentry Center, as well as facilities in Yakima and Spokane, are being targeted for closure as part of a plan to shore up an estimated $16 billion Washington state budget shortfall.

► From KUOW — Trump is revoking visas. Students, post-grads in Seattle worry they’ll be targeted for supporting Gaza — The Trump administration has detained green-card holders and revoked the visas of legal residents who spoke out about Gaza. Yusuf graduated from UW a decade ago but went to the protests last year during an appearance by a right-wing group; he got shoved to the ground by a counter-protester in a video posted online. “I have at least one police report [from] when I was assaulted there,” Yusuf said. “I imagine that that is something that will be looked up.” Yusuf himself is a citizen.“If I think about the people that I knew that were at a lot of the protests, a lot of them are citizens, but their parents aren’t,” Yusuf said. “There’s now that extra worry of ‘how far are they exactly going to go?’”…“You can’t have a situation where the government just picks somebody up and packs him away and that’s the last you hear of him,” said Paul Burstein, a UW professor-emeritus of sociology and Jewish Studies, who says he’s a Zionist.

► From the South Seattle Emerald — Nearly 1,000 Rally and March in SeaTac Demanding an End to ICE Incarcerations, Supporting Public Education, Student Safety, Public Workers — “In the Highline School District, the DOE [Department of Education] spends $29.5 million, of which $9 million … goes to feed children,” said Jeb Binns, a Highline High School teacher and HEA president, in reference to the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the DOE. “And if we all of a sudden think that feeding children is not something that we should do, then we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.”

AEROSPACE

► From Reuters — Aerospace firms scour contracts over tariffs after supplier challenge — Planemakers, airlines and suppliers are combing through billions of dollars worth of contracts to check their exposure to tariffs after a major U.S. supplier sparked debate over who should pay for an emerging trade war, industry sources said on Monday. Analysts said Howmet’s rare and unexpected declaration that it can legally avoid contract obligations due to unavoidable circumstances will amplify debate about who should bear the cost for chronic disruption to parts supplies, including new tariffs.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Cascadia Daily — PeaceHealth union members authorize strike — PeaceHealth [SEIU Healthcare 1199NW] members overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike at St. Joseph Medical Center. If they choose to strike, the union’s bargaining team is required to give the hospital 10 days’ notice. “We’re back at bargaining next Monday and we’re calling on management to bring proposals that would stop us from having to strike,” said Jose Reta, an MRI technologist at St. Joseph and a member of the bargaining team. “We don’t want to, but we will if we have to.”

NATIONAL

► From People’s World — Steelworkers open convention with call for action against Trump cuts — “It’s not just about helping the ultra-wealthy get wealthier,” USW President David McCall declared as he opened the convention. McCall said of the corporate class’s objective of wrecking the NLRB by declaring it unconstitutional: “It’s about making sure we don’t share in the wealth we create.” That class is also scared because “They know how powerful we are when we’re united,” McCall added. “So we are going to organize like hell.”

► From Fierce Healthcare — Resident physicians largely in favor of unionization, citing low pay, long hours — The poll, published late last week, was conducted in 2023 and reached 1,235 resident physicians, of whom about three-quarters were in their first postgraduate year. Of these, about a fifth said they were already part of a union at their institution. However, among the remaining 986 respondents who were not unionized, 63% said they would vote in favor of a union at their institution while just under 10% said they would vote against.

► From the New York Times — U.S. Bond Sell-Off Raises Questions About ‘Safe Haven’ Status — A sharp sell-off in U.S. government bond markets has sparked fears about the growing fallout from President Trump’s sweeping tariffs and retaliation by China, the European Union and others, raising questions about what is typically seen as the safest corner for investors to take cover during times of turmoil.

► From NABTU:

We demand @smartunionworks apprentice Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia be returned to his family. Bring him home now. pic.twitter.com/raEXE2Xvb5

— The Building Trades (@NABTU) April 9, 2025

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• Union and association representing museum and library workers sue Trump administration (Art Newspaper)

► From Cascade PBS — WA agency tightens workplace safety rules for student learners — L&I’s new criteria, which went into effect Jan. 15, require officials to start scrutinizing a company’s history of safety and labor violations, tax debts and workers’ compensation injury claims before issuing this variance. The six-page guidelines indicate the checks should ensure issuing “the variance will not be harmful to the health, safety, and welfare of the minor.”…House Bill 1644, proposed in the Legislature this session, would apply many of the same criteria in the new guidelines to all companies employing minors.

► From the Lynnwood Times — Reps Larsen, Jayapal, DelBene, Schrier and others demand answers on Bellingham ICE raid — “On Wednesday in Bellingham, ICE officers entered a workplace, pointed guns at employees, and took away 37 community members in unmarked vans. For months, the Trump administration has insisted that their deportation efforts are focused on ‘the worst of the worst’ and true public safety threats. In reality, there is no indication that the people detained this week are anything other than dedicated parents working hard to support their families and positive contributors to their communities.”

► From the Washington State Standard — Washington’s Cantwell pushes plan to rein in Trump’s tariff power — Her new bipartisan legislation to give Congress more authority over trade policy has more than half a dozen Republican cosponsors in the U.S. Senate. And on Tuesday, Cantwell was one of many senators who grilled the president’s top trade advisor after days of stock market turmoil, anxiety over the price of goods, and growing concerns about the country plunging into a recession.

► From the New York Times — House G.O.P. Leaders Press Ahead With Budget Vote as Defectors Dig In — The resolution scaled a key hurdle Wednesday morning when the powerful House Rules Committee approved a measure that would allow it to go to the floor. G.O.P. leaders argued that time was of the essence to push it through and get started on Mr. Trump’s agenda, while Mr. Trump stepped up the pressure on Republicans to back it. “Close your eyes and get there; it’s a phenomenal bill,” Mr. Trump told lawmakers Tuesday night at a fund-raising dinner in Washington. “Stop grandstanding.” But a number of anti-spending House Republicans said they planned to defy the president and oppose the measure, arguing it would add too much to the nation’s debt.

► From the Hill — Democrats unveil legislation raising federal minimum wage to $17 an hour – Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the Raise the Wage Act of 2025 on Tuesday in both chambers with hopes of increasing the federal minimum wage. The bill would raise the minimum wage to $17 by 2030 according to the Economic Policy Institute. The current federally mandated hourly wage is $7.25 and has not increased since 2009.

► From the AP — IRS acting commissioner is resigning over deal to send immigrants’ tax data to ICE, AP sources say — Melanie Krause, who had served as acting head since February, will step down over the new data-sharing document signed Monday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The agreement will allow ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records.

► From the AP — Judge tells government to provide evidence, or case against Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil is over — At a hearing Tuesday in Louisiana, Judge Jamee Comans gave the government 24 hours to provide evidence showing that Khalil, a 30-year-old legal permanent resident [and UAW member], should be expelled from the country for his role in campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza. If the evidence does not support his removal, she said, “then I am going to terminate the case on Friday.” While the Trump administration has suggested that Khalil’s role as a spokesperson for protesters proved that he was “aligned with Hamas,” they have yet to produce evidence for the claim.

► From the Hill — OPINION:Trump is neutering the Labor Department — As the Trump administration pushes sweeping changes to the federal government’s structure, one agency stands as a canary in the coal mine: the U.S. Department of Labor. My interview with leaders of AFGE Local 2391 — which represents federal employees in the Department’s Pacific Region — reveals the dire consequences of proposed workforce reductions, early retirement offers, and ideological shifts in governance.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox. The next edition will be Wednesday, April 16.