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Tesla’s harm | Ferguson on taxes | Strike-ready at Vigor

Friday, April 18, 2025

 

LOCAL

► From NW Public Broadcasting — Hundreds of children affected by sudden Head Start closures in Central Washington — The program’s suspension affected seven Inspire centers in the region, leaving more than 400 children without educational support after federal funding never arrived…Garza said not having the program would tremendously impact these rural communities. “They wouldn’t have access to child care. There are communities that don’t have a lot of preschool or childcare programs for younger children,” Garza said.

► From the Spokesman Review — ‘They’re not worried about accuracy’: Lawyers, people across Washington state receive a letter telling them they have 7 days to leave — Herrera said she sent a letter to U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner regarding the concerns of numerous people in the community who have received the letter from DHS. “Most of the individuals who received these emails were never granted parole, nor do they have any documentation indicating they ever had such status. Many are asylum seekers, individuals with pending immigration relief, or undocumented people with no criminal history who have lived in the U.S. peacefully for years,” her letter to Baumgartner states…Some who are U.S. citizens or have legal status have also received this letter.

► From the union-busting Columbian — ‘We all want to go home at the end of the day’: Clark County is 4th in Washington for work zone crashes — Ben Kemp, a Clark County highway maintenance crew chief, said to be cautious not only on busy roads but at controlled traffic sites. Last year, a driver ran over the toes of one of the workers, he said. He advised drivers to not only slow down when driving past traffic control zones but to make eye contact with crew members. “I like to go home every night. I like all my crew to go home every night,” Kemp said. “I don’t want to be the one to have to make that phone call to somebody’s loved one to say they’re in the hospital or they’re not coming home.”

► From the Seattle Times — National Park Week: Free admissions to Mount Rainier, Olympics and more –All national parks across the country will offer free admission Saturday, as National Park Week kicks off. The week, which will run through April 27, is about appreciating all that national parks provide for communities across the U.S., and this year, a little extra love might go far…Washington is home to the North Cascades, Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks and each offers its own beauties.

 

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing sets new values after ‘brutal’ employee feedback — At an all-hands meeting last month Ortberg said initial survey feedback showed Boeing management needs to shape up and spend more time listening to front-line employees. He said at the time that Boeing would put an action plan in place to address those concerns. On Wednesday, he told managers he “suspected” employee feedback would be “brutal to the leadership of the company, and it met those expectations.”…Only 27% of survey participants said they would highly recommend Boeing as a place to work.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the NW Labor Press — Vigor shipyard workers poised to strike — The Metal Trades Council’s last contract expired Nov. 30, 2024, but the unions and Vigor agreed to a contract extension. The contract included a no-strike clause, so the unions notified Vigor that they were terminating the contract extension on April 8. A strike could happen as soon as April 22, Portland Metal Trades Council President Ben Heurung said. “I definitely think we’re worth more than what they’re trying to give us,” said Erick Wilkeson, a third-generation shipyard worker and IBEW Local 48 member at the Portland shipyard.

 

NATIONAL

► From the NW Labor Press — Bad boss Elon Musk painted over safety yellow — According to the memo, his electric car maker Tesla has 27 open cases with OSHA, with fines totaling more than $300,000. Among the Tesla violations: an electrician who was fatally electrocuted while inspecting an electrical panel he was told was not energized; a contract worker who died from heat stroke; hot metal that spilled on three workers and made their clothing catch fire; and four workers who were exposed to hexavalent chromium.

Editor’s note: Musk’s harrowing disregard for workers’ lives and limbs has been well-documented for years. From Reveal in 2018: Working through the pain at Tesla). 

► From the AP — FDA hiring contractors to replace fired staff who supported safety inspections — The potential disruptions to FDA’s already strained inspection force are so great that agency leaders recently expedited plans to hire outside contractors to replace some fired workers, starting with those who arranged foreign travel, according to staffers with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity. Under FDA rules, staffers are prohibited from publicly discussing sensitive agency matters without permission.

► From the New York Times — An ‘Army of Child Laborers’ Enriches Shen Yun, Ex-Dancers Say in Suit — The lawsuit by the former dancers, Sun Zan and Cheng Qingling, is at least the second civil action targeting the group and its leaders since The New York Times last year detailed the treatment of performers and financial practices at the arts company, an arm of the Falun Gong religious movement. Federal criminal investigators have also been examining possible visa fraud at Shen Yun, and New York State has been investigating the group’s compliance with labor laws.

► From SMART:

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — Ferguson calls Democrats’ $12B tax plan ‘too risky’; offers no fix — Ferguson offered no details or alternative plans in a public statement issued more than a day after Democratic lawmakers unveiled the latest tax package, which dropped a wealth tax he previously criticized…Backers of the Democrats’ tax package say it would avoid painful cuts to state services and place much of the tax-increase burden on larger companies and wealthy individuals.

► From the Tri-City Herald — WA wealth-tax test balloon considered by state Democrats — Ferguson added that he was open to talking about a different number: $100 million annually, an idea that could be tested in court. Looks like Democrats are taking the governor up on that test-balloon offer. Senate Bill 5797, the upper chamber’s wealth-tax measure, is scheduled for an executive session Friday morning in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

► From Gossip Guy — Washington Senate’s version of rent stabilization would have limited impact on landlord profiteering — The COVID-19 pandemic, in all its devastation, serves as an important natural experiment for us to better understand the housing market. What happens if we freeze the economy for more than a year while at the same time massively increasing wealth inequality? …From July 2021 to August 2022, median rent increases in Washington State remained above 7%. This means more than half of renters could have probably saved a lot of money during that 13-month period of time if the house version of HB 1217 had been in place.

► From Jacobin — ICE Sets Its Sights on Massachusetts Immigrant Workers — This week, ICE snatched an immigrant seafood worker in Massachusetts at an employer whose workers have engaged in nationally celebrated collective action for years — the kind of collective action that, on a mass scale, would be a major threat to Trump…The [administration’s] playbook has a long history going back to the 1930s, when an estimated 300,000 to 2 million Mexican workers were forced to leave the country. Since taking office, Donald Trump’s federal agents have arrested and detained 370 people in Massachusetts. Of those arrests, fifteen have occurred in New Bedford.

► From the AP — Judge pauses Trump administration’s plans for mass layoffs at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she is “deeply concerned” that Trump administration officials aren’t complying with her earlier order that maintains the bureau’s existence until she rules on the merits of a lawsuit seeking to preserve it. During a hearing, Jackson said she will bar officials from carrying out any mass firings or cutting off employees’ access to bureau computer systems on Friday.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From BLET — As the U.S. threatens to privatize Amtrak, the UK begins to renationalize passenger rail after 30 years of a failed experiment with privatization — While the Trump Administration and billionaire advisor Elon Musk are talking about privatizing passenger rail here in the USA, in the UK, they’re going in the opposite direction. Next month, on May 25, the British will begin nationalizing passenger rail after decades of failed privatization, which began in 1994.

► From Labor Notes — Unmoved by Tariff Threats, Mexican GM Workers Win a Double-Digit Wage Hike –Union leadership said they didn’t let the uncertainty around tariffs scare them into a conciliatory posture. “It would take years to transfer production,” said Alejandra Morales Reynoso, General Secretary of SINTTIA. “They’d need an installation like GM [Silao], a complex made up of six or seven plants, which would be a multi-million dollar expense.” Knowing that, Reynoso and the bargaining committee weren’t moved by what-ifs: “They’ve always threatened to relocate, like back during the global economic crisis,” she said, but it was more profitable to leave GM Silao in operation.”

 

TODAY’S MUST-WATCH

► From PBS News:

 

JOLT OF JOY

Left or right, red or blue state, we can all agree: oligarchy is evil, and Chappell Roan writes bangers.

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